


Kiss with a Fist

by paradiamond



Category: Fight Club - All Media Types, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Fight Club AU, M/M, No split personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:30:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glenn's life changes when he gets swept up in the Fight Club and with the group's charismatic leader Philip Blake. Glenn has never felt more alive, and he'll hang onto the feeling even if it kills him. Then there's Daryl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pushed Down

It’s funny how fast your life can go from boring, to amazing, to absolutely batshit insane in the space of only a few months. Things moved so fast Glenn could barely even see them. Could barely tell how much he had been changing. Glenn stares down at the shiny surface of the table, trying to make out the image of his own face under all the bruises. 

“Son,” Rick says from across the table, giving him a stern look. “If you want to avoid jail time, and you are potentially looking at that, you’re going to have to cooperate. Start from the beginning.” 

Glenn breathes out, glancing at the clock. Two am. Jail time should probably freak him out. Maybe he's in shock, but he doesn't really feel anything. His head is pounding, the force of it causing his vision to blur. Blood loss, probably. Martinez had gotten him pretty good.

 _”Glenn.”_

He jerks his head back around to meet Rick’s frustrated eyes. “Right, uh- sorry.” 

“That’s ok,” Rick says, slowly, as if he was speaking to a small and not too bright child. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. Glenn wonders how interrogations usually go for him, how Shane used to be as a partner. Did they do a good cop bad cop thing? Shane was probably the bad cop and now Rick has to do both jobs. He meets Rick’s gaze, curiosity starting to bubble up, and decides that right now is definitely not a good time to ask. 

Rick leans forward, looking straight into Glenn’s eyes. “Tell me how you ended up in the Fight Club.” 

Glenn takes a deep breath, and starts sifting through memories that feel like a lifetime ago. 

***

All Glenn had wanted to do was to use the bathroom. It’s not his fault that the shitty bar Amy has ditched him at has almost no signs, and nothing that indicates to Glenn that going through the back door behind the bar would land him in this mess. 

If anything, the whole situation is Amy’s fault, because if she hadn’t blown him off like that he probably would have turned right back around, walked away, and never given what he sees a second thought. She always does this to him, and he should know better by now. But feeling like shit makes Glenn reckless and stupid, so when he opens the door and sees dark stairs leading down to a room full of shouting people, Glenn goes down the stairs.

What he finds changes his life. 

The two men fighting in the middle of the large, dimly lit basement room are surrounded by a cheering crowd. Glenn stops dead on the stairs, frozen, eyes glued to the sight as one tackles the other to the floor and hits him hard in the face. He so taken in that he doesn’t even notice the man coming up from behind him until he speaks. 

“Great, isn’t it.” Glenn jumps, nearly tripping down the last few steps. He must have followed Glen when he saw him go down the stairs. The man is a kind of generic all-American handsome, not too tall but not too short, with brown hair and brown eyes. He shouldn't be too compelling, but there’s something about him that Glenn can’t place. 

“I uh-” Everything catches up to his at once and he’s starting to get the feeling that he may have made a bad decision. 

The man stays where he is, a foot or so above him. He sticks out one hand, and it takes Glenn a second to realize that he’s supposed to shake it. The man smiles.

“The name’s Philip, welcome to Fight Club.”

 _Yeah_ , Glenn thinks, _this is bad_. He judges the distance between the man and the door, knowing he’ll never make it on the stairs. A hand wraps around his arm and tugs him further into the now silent room. The fight must have stopped already and Glenn didn't notice. Glenn puts up a token struggle, but doesn’t push it because he really, _really_ doesn’t want to get hit. 

Philip crosses his arms and leans against the wall by the stairs, guarding the exit. “Shane,” he calls out, and one of the mean who had been fighting looks up. “Good fight. Now why don’t you welcome our new friend?”

Shane grins in spite of the blood streaming from his nose and walks in Glenn’s direction. Glenn tenses, squeezing his eyes shut, but the punch never comes. Instead he gets a strange set of rules he only half listens to, glancing around the room for a clue as to what the hell is going on. The men are all staring at either him or Shane, but they don’t seem angry. Glenn frowns. Is he not about to be murdered? 

“-and the eighth and final rule, if this your first night at Fight Club,” Shane says, making sure that Glenn meets his gaze. “You have to fight.” 

Glenn feels his eyes go wide, his pulse speeding up as he realizes what they expect from him. Philip claps a few times, prompting some scattered laughter from the rest of the group, and straightens, deliberately looks around the room. “Thank you very much Shane. Now son, what’s your name?”

Glenn just stands there like an idiot until someone nudges him from behind. “Uh- Glenn. It’s Glenn.” He immediately snaps his mouth shut, horrified that he’d just told these people his real name. 

Philip nods like this means something to him. “Have you ever been in a fight, Glenn?”

He can only shake his head, fear and anger creeping up his spine and making his heart hammer. Philip nods again. “Not many people nowadays have, if you’d believe it. But they don’t call it fight or flight for no reason, we’ve all got it. Men aren't meant to sit still all the time, going from couch to office to car five days out of seven.” Scattered murmuring of approval breaks out. Philip shifts forward, holding onto the banister and scanning the room. “How about...Daryl. You can fight Glenn.”

Low, excited muttering breaks out and Glenn thinks that he should have just stayed home. None of this would be happening if he just hadn't bothered. It isn’t like Amy ever really means it when she promises him things, he should have known better. 

Most of the people in the room look behind him, so Glenn turns to see a man approaching, shirtless like the rest of them with a heavily scarred torso. The man, who he supposes is Daryl, sees him looking and glares. “Somethin’ you want t’ say?” he demands, curling his hands into fists, making his knuckles crack. 

Glenn scrambles back, but large hands catch him from behind and propel him forward, back into the circle. People are shouting, though it’s mostly variations of ‘come on’ and ‘you can take him!’ which Glenn thinks is probably meant to be encouraging even though it’s an obvious lie. Daryl looks like he could eat him for breakfast.

Glenn spins and comes face to face with his opponent, who oddly doesn’t immediately start beating the shit out of him when he raises his arms to protect his face. There's nothing at all. He glances up, and sees Daryl staring him down with a look of distaste. 

“Take yer’ shirt off.”

Glenn blinks up at him dumbly. “I- what?” 

The man, Daryl, gives him a severely unimpressed look. “It’s no shirt, no shoes, an’ no weapons, weren’t you listening?”

“I- not really,” Glenn says, his voice coming out about two octaves too high. Someone behind him laughs, and he feels a blush creep up his neck. 

Daryl spits. “Fine. But you have to fight, it’s the rules.” 

Glenn fidgets. “No, come on man, this is crazy!” He’s angry now, at himself for being an idiot and at Amy for being a bitch and especially at _Philip_ and his crazy-ass _thing_ because he really does not want to fight a stranger in some dive bar basement.

Daryl just shrugs. “It’s the rules.”

“It’s-”

“But since you want t’ be some kinda of lil’ _bitch_ and cop out, rule three says that once the fight starts, you can tap out at any time and it’s over.” He gives Glenn a once over and smirks. “Which I guess is what you’ll do if you aint man enough fer’ it, _Chinaman_.” 

Glenn stands there, gaping at him for god knows how long before the indignity of it all just curls low and hot somewhere in the back of his mind and he angrily strips off his shirt. “I’m Korean.” 

“Whatever.” Daryl shifts into a fighting stance. “Let’s go.”

The next few minutes are blur, and Glenn doesn’t bother to describe most of it to Rick when he tells this part of the story, and he leaves Daryl's name out it entirely. What he does remember is taking the first swing and Daryl dodging, and then immediately sweeping Glenn’s legs out from underneath him. He remembers hitting the floor and feeling the air rush out of his lungs, then getting back up again to see Daryl waiting, a grin curving over his face. He can still feel that first burst of adrenaline when Daryl’s fist connected with his jaw like an electric shock that didn’t fade. 

They circle each other, trading jabs, and last thing he remembers is the strangely pleased look on Daryl’s face when Glenn finally lands a punch to his solar plexus, because then Daryl swings and Glenn is waking up on the floor thirty minutes later, head pounding.

He sits up, disoriented, and sees that the room is now mostly empty, though there are still a few people milling about and talking. He glances around nervously. Daryl is gone, which Glenn is pretty sure is a good thing. For one thing, he doesn't think he knows the etiquette for this particular situation. Also he's bleeding. 

“Nobody wins the first time,” a voice to his left states, and Glenn jumps. He looks around wildly and sees Philip smirking at him from one of the folding chairs. “Then again, it’s not really about winning, is it?” 

Glenn stares up at him, wondering distantly if Philip is going to kill him now for knowing too much or something. That would pretty much make sense at this point. 

“You had a good try though, I could tell Daryl was impressed.” 

Glenn reaches up to rub at his aching jaw, realizing for the first time that he isn't angry anymore and wondering why, and why he isn’t freaking out and calling the cops. Phillip raises one eyebrow at him.

“Are you alright?

“Yeah,” Glenn says, and it’s weird because it’s true. He’s in pain, but he _feels_ fine. “I’m gonna...go now. I guess.” 

Phillip nods, standing. “Me too, I was just making sure you weren’t concussed or anything. Sometimes Daryl can go a bit far.” He leans down, offering Glenn a hand, which he takes, feeling like he’s in a dream. They walk up the stairs together, and Glenn looks back to see that there’s blood on the floor. Might even be his blood. He looks away, feeling strangely detached from the entire situation. He hopes that doesn't mean he's going to go into shock or something. 

When they resurface the bar looks the same, except that it’s empty, which Glenn finds comforting. He's not sure he could deal with people right now. Philip makes for the bar, waving Glenn off. “I’ve got to handle some business, you go on home.”

“You own this place?” Glenn asks, because he feels like it’s the polite thing to do.

Philip laughs and pats the bar. “Yeah she’s a dump, but she’s my dump. You go on home now, you look like you could use some rest.” Glenn nods, and turns to go, checking his pockets for his keys, surprised to find that no one took his stuff, not even the cash.

He’s just opening the door when Philip stops him. “Oh, Glenn?”

Glenn freezes. “Yeah?” He knew it, leaving was too easy and now he’s going to die. This is it. 

“Same time next week if you’re interested.” 

Glenn can't help but turn back around, hoping his incredulity isn’t showing on his face. _”Come back?”_ he asks, trying not to let his voice crack. He had to be kidding.

Philip shrugs. “It’s fine by me either way, it’s just that...”

Glenn can’t resist, just like he couldn’t not go down those stairs. “What?”

Philip looks up and smiles that comforting smile again. “Most come back. They just like it. Like I said before it’s what we’re meant to do, not to sit around in offices and cars all day. We’re not zombies after all, we need to _live_ every once and awhile.” His smile broadens. “Get the tension out.”

Glenn stares, mind blank. “I...have to go.” And he bolts, letting the door slam behind him, trying to ignore it when he hears ‘see you next week!’ through the thin wood. 

He gets in his car and just drives aimlessly until his heart stops pounding and is so lost it takes him an hour to get his bearings again. 

Amy calls him at around two in the morning, and he ignores her, busy probing at his face in the vanity mirror he never uses. “Jesus,” Glenn whispers, all the rest of the fear he’d avoided at the time hitting him at once when he sees his amazingly black and blue face. It's so extreme it doesn't even look real to him, like bad stage makeup. He tries to close the mirror but his hands are shaking so badly it takes him two tries. 

His phone rings again and he stares down at the pixilated letters spelling out ‘Amy’ and then ‘Missed calls: 4’ with a sort of detachment he isn’t used to in regards to her. He just can't deal with her right now. She's difficult even when Glenn isn't actively bleeding from the face. Any other time he would have answered and listened to how sorry she is, and how he should bring her over a pizza tomorrow so she can ‘make it up to him’. 

Or maybe she’s actually scared at this point, freaked out that he isn’t answering because he _never_ does that and he smiles. “Serves her right for being such a bitch all the time,” he mutters, surprising himself. Maybe he should call her, give her a taste of her own medicine, but he doesn’t. 

It’s not like he can explain where he’s been anyway.

What he should do is call the police, report it. He’s got the face to back it up, can lead them straight to the scene. Though now that he thinks about it, he’s not actually sure anything illegal took place. They didn’t really _make_ him do anything, and he swung at Daryl first. Confused, Glenn resolves to just deal with it later. 

He tosses the phone into the back seat and drives home, feeling the pain in his hand from where he’d connected with Daryl’s rock-like body. 

“Crazy bastard,” Glenn mutters, pulling into the garage for his apartment complex. He sits there for a bit, just staring out the window, which probably isn’t the smartest thing, but he figures he looks insane enough that most people will leave him alone. The worst that would probably happen is someone trying to jack the car, but then what would they do? Beat him up? 

So he sits in his car and tell himself that he absolutely will not go back to the bar next week, which, to be fair he doesn’t.

He goes back the week after.


	2. Blood Brothers

The look Philip gives him when he walks into the bar for the second time is so smug Glenn almost turns around and walks right back out. As it is, he’s blocking the door and ends up getting pushed further inside anyway. The person that had pushed him sends him a glare as he passes, but Glenn is too freaked out to do more than weirdly smile at him like an idiot. He glances around nervously, aware that he's totally out of place, and comes to an awkward stop in front of the bar.

Philip nods to him. He's on the phone so Glenn just orders from the other bartender and sits, looking out over the room and wondering which of the men he would be fighting later on. Hopefully not the man he had smiled at, and hopefully not Daryl again.

Not for the first time in the past few days, Glenn wonders if he might actually be crazy, if that’s not just something Amy says to get to him. _Probably._ He thinks, accepting his drink with a smile. 

“You better not have too many,” Philip says. Glenn looks up, trying to be casual.

He sets the drink down and rests his elbow on the bar. “Why’s that?” 

Philip taps the side of his head. “Dulls the reflexes, makes you less sharp.” Glenn nods and take another sip anyway. The logic makes sense, but he’s pretty sure that he’s going to need at least one strong one to actually get him back down the stairs.

“So. You’re early,” Philip says, leaning against the bar. 

Glenn shrugs. “I didn’t know what time to be here, so I figured early is probably better than late.” 

“Well you’ve got over an hour, might as well make yourself comfortable.”

Figures. Glenn digs in his pocket and pulls out his phone, checking his messages. Nothing. He frowns and puts it back. 

“How did you know I’d come back?” he asks, after the silence becomes too awkward with Philip still standing there looking at him. Glenn doesn't like the feeling of being studied.

Philip gives him a more deliberate once over. “Because when you walked down those stairs you stood there and watched a good ten minutes of fighting. Would have stood there all night if we’d let you. You belong here.”

Glenn nods, avoiding his eyes. It's probably true. He glances over to the doors. He know that he can still walk out, can just go back home and sit there and watch TV, or think about all the bills he has to pay, or the fact that he’s pretty sure his girlfriend is cheating on him. Or he could stay and do something crazy for once. 

It’s not that hard of a decision.

He sits at the bar until Philip nods to the basement door, getting up to discretely follow the rest of the fighters. The other patrons of the bar don't seem to notice anything strange. Glenn notices that the second bartender seems to take over, which explains how it was still open with Philip absent that first night Glenn came. When he get’s downstairs, it feels weirdly similar to one of those awkward parties Glenn had been to where he doesn't know anyone but he still tries to make small talk anyway. He jambs his hands into his pockets and keeps his head down. Glenn feels distinctly out of place, standing off to the side and watching the other men joke around. He isn’t sure whether he should be trying to make connections or sizing people up. 

One guy finally notices him and walks over, and Glenn feels himself tense up, watching him approach warily.

“Hey man, you’re the new kid from two weeks ago right?” The guy look down at him with a generally friendly and open expression. Glenn figures that this is his best bet. He just wishes that it didn't feel so much like the first day of school. 

Glenn turns to face him and tries to smile back with some success. “I guess so.”

“I’m T-Dog, nice to meet you.” He sticks out his hand and it feels so natural to raise his own to shake T-Dog's offered one that Glenn can’t help but relax. 

“So this place, pretty weird, right?” Glenn asks cautiously, not wanting to insult him. 

T-Dog just laughs. “Tell me about it, never thought I’d see the day. The guys here are cool though, and it’s really just for fun. You don’t got nothing to worry about.” 

Glenn smiles, feeling comfortable for the first time all night. He lets T-Dog lead him further into the room, glancing around more confidently. A lot of the men are comparing bruises, talking about the fights they’d been in, congratulating each other on their best ones. It’s surreal, but Glenn can’t help but like it. 

He spots Daryl on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall and talking to a hispanic man with a baseball cap. Daryl seems to feel his eyes on him because he looks up, sporting a black eye and and an unreadable expression. Glenn jerks his gaze away and continues talking to T-Dog, who seems to have decided to adopt him as a new friend, and a tall skinny guy named Jim. 

Philip enters the room and everyone falls silent at once to turn and look at him. They all have the same anticipation in their eyes. It kind of freaks Glenn out, how automatic the response had been, but then he’s talking so Glenn stops worrying and makes himself pay attention. 

“Gentlemen,” he says, coming to a stop in front of them. “Welcome to Fight Club.” He meets Glenn’s eyes and Glenn can’t help but hold himself a little straighter. 

He actually pays attention to the rules this time, actually holds his own against Jim, and accepts his offered hand with a smile after he taps out, spitting blood onto the ground. It hurts like a bitch. It feels amazing.

He gets what Philip was saying about it not being about winning. 

It’s his only fight of the night, but watching them is somehow just as good. He cheers as T-Dog gets the upper hand over Shane for a minute before getting tackled to the ground, slapping him on the back when he rejoins the circle, black eye already forming and grinning like crazy. The fight between Daryl and Martinez takes forever but it’s so compelling that Glenn doesn’t even notice the time. He realizes with a jolt when they finish and someone yells ‘twenty minutes!’ that he hasn’t wondered what time it is since he set foot in the basement, and hasn’t checked his phone for even longer. Daryl ends up standing next to him during the next fight, breathing hard and sweating, and Glenn grins as he realizes that he really doesn’t give a shit what time it is or what’s going on anywhere else. _This is living_ , he thinks.

“Nice one,” he says to Daryl, though he’s watching two guys he doesn’t know wrestle each other into the dirt floor. 

“Thanks, not so bad ‘yerself this time,” Daryl comments, not looking at him either, and Glenn grins as one guy takes a right hook to the jaw. 

It’s probably the best night of his life. 

***

Glenn comes back every week he can after that, which is pretty much any day he doesn’t have to work. Even then he rushes it, making dangerous turns through streets he has no business being on to get the pizzas delivered faster so that maybe his boss will let him off early. That night, he does, shooting Glenn an odd look as he stuffs his tips into the inner pocket of his backpack, not even bothering to count them. Glenn shrugs it off, figuring that it’s probably just the bruises decorating his face that are freaking him out. He doesn’t ask about it though, no one at work ever does. 

He rushes out the door, anticipation already making his blood run faster when he spots Amy leaning against the door of his car. Not her car. _His_ car. Glenn freezes. He knew that ignoring all of her texts and voicemails was going to come back to haunt him eventually. She’s glaring at him, arms crossed over her trendy sports jacket that Glenn always makes fun of her for because she doesn’t even play sports. He stops a few feet away from her, right in the light of the street lamp and her expression shifts from a glare to a gape.

“Oh my god, what happened to your face?” she demands, her mouth making a perfect ‘O’ shape.

Glenn shifts on the balls of his feet, caught between feeling macho, ‘I’m about to go beat some ass’ irritation and feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. 

“Look, Amy-”

“No! You know what Glenn, I don’t know what’s going on with you and this _thing_ or whatever, but it isn’t fair to _me_ for you to just- what are you doing?”

Glenn pauses, his hand on the driver’s side door handle. She’s glaring at him over the roof, arms crossed and he fights the urge to stick his tongue out at her. 

“Amy,” he says, meeting her eyes. “I’m breaking up with you.” 

She lets out a sputtering half-yelp and he ducks into the car, ignoring her as he drives away. His phone goes off in the cup holder and he turns it off, grinning. Weirdly enough, his relationship with Amy actually improves after that. 

Glenn drives like a maniac, weaving through traffic and accidentally running a red light. It’s a miracle he doesn’t get pulled over, but he makes it to the bar in one piece, making a beeline for the basement door. It’s already going, and part of Glenn likes it better this way, just walking straight into a fight. He joins up with the rest of the group and sees T-Dog grappling with someone Glenn thinks might be new. 

Five minutes later new guy spits one of his teeth out on the dirt floor and stares up at T-Dog in horror, and something like admiration. 

Glenn has three fights that night, which is a lot, even for them. Phillip can always seem to sense when people need it though, and Glenn is definitely feeling that itch tonight. He even nearly knocks Daryl down once. Nearly. 

They’re taking a break, Phillip gone upstairs to do something or other when Daryl comes up to where Glenn is talking to Jim and slaps him on the back. It stings, but it’s a good sting. Glenn nods at him, not bold enough yet to put his hands on Daryl when they're not fighting.

“Chinaman,” Daryl growls.

“Hick,” Glenn responds, evenly. 

Daryl makes a face Glenn can now recognize as mock irritation and leans against the wall.

Jim rolls his eyes and turns his attention to T-Dog, who is still talking to the new guy. Glenn wonders if it’s his job to welcome the newbies or if he’s just a nice person. He shrugs and turns to Daryl, who he now counts as a solid acquaintance. Not quite a friend, but then Daryl doesn’t seem to actually have any friends in the first place. 

“You know what I was wondering?”

Daryl snorts. “Prolly’ a whole lot.”

“Should we be worried about the cops finding this? I mean, I don’t know if anything here is _technically_ illegal but-”

“Naw, see that guy?” Daryl nods over to the corner.

Glenn looks and then laughs. “Uh, you mean Shane? The guy who gives the rules and comes here like every-” 

“Whatever, yeah. Anyway, the guy’s a cop.” 

Glenn blinks. “No way. You mean like, currently?” Daryl just shrugs. Glenn looks again. He had never been up against Shane, which is probably for the best since Shane is freaking huge and scary as hell when he fights. He clearly isn’t an amateur, and Glenn had just assumed that he was ex-army or something. But a cop? 

“Shit,” Glenn says, because he can’t believe it. 

“Yeah. Shows up every week, never said a word about it. Only found out cuz' my brother got himself into some shit and I had to go deal with it. So I go, and I run into ‘Officer Walsh’, badge an’ everything.” 

“What’d you say?” Glenn asks because he can’t help himself. Every fact he learns about Daryl is oddly compelling to him, like hero worship but for beating the shit out of people. 

Daryl shrugs. “Nothin’. We ain’t the same out there.” 

Glenn stares, stunned as Daryl steps up to take his next fight.

***

“If you could fight any celebrity, who would it be?” 

Daryl scoffs, raising the beer to his lips. They’re in Phillip’s bar, both early. Apparently neither of them have much to do out in the real world at eight pm on a weekend which Glenn kind of likes. They’re almost edging towards friends now. 

“Stupid question,” Daryl grunts, setting the bottle down on the bar.

Glenn punches him lightly on the arm. “No really, think about it. Who would it be?” 

Daryl rolls his eyes, ignoring him, and Glenn is starting to wonder if it’s because he just doesn’t _know_ that many celebrities when Daryl licks his lips and answers. 

“Johnny Cash.” 

Glenn laughs and Daryl shoves him clean off the stool and onto the dirty floor, still way stronger than him despite the constant fighting. He’s not sure what Daryl does for a living, they don’t really talk about their everyday stuff all that much, or at all. Mostly they keep it light and stupid like this. Glenn’s pretty sure that whatever he does, it’s some kind of manual work that keeps him this consistently ripped. Not that muscle is all that matters in a fight, as Glenn had been gradually learning. Speed, and an even head can make just as much of a difference. 

“Well what about you then if it’s such a perfect fucking question?”

Glenn pushes himself back up onto his stool and raises an eyebrow. “Easy. Madonna.”

That one actually gets Daryl laughing, which is rare. Glenn feels a surge of accomplishment and looks away, taking a sip of his soda. _Jus’ soda_ , like Daryl had said, mocking him. But Glenn isn’t capable of drinking like Daryl does and performing even halfway decently in a fight. Actually, Phillip is right, he prefers the starkness that comes with a clear head. The ice cold clarity of every hit given and received. It makes him feel alive, which for Glenn is the entire point of Fight Club. 

They sit at the bar and pick at each other, trying not to get too visibly excited in front of the normal people. They don’t bother to slow their steps when Philip nods to them though, pushing and jostling each other all the way down the stairs.


	3. Bone Fractured

Fight Club comes to dominate Glenn’s life. 

He stops caring so much what people at work think. His face is almost always an ungodly mess these days, but his muscles have hardened under the constant impact. He’s an entirely different person. One time on a pizza run, he spots a man crossing the street to avoid him. To avoid _Glenn_. 

It’s exhilarating. Everything just seems so much more real to him somehow. The colors are brighter. He sees right through people. The pieces of his old life seems to crumble away. He doesn’t keep up with worthless celebrity gossip, doesn’t bother returning Amy’s calls. His xbox sits on top of his crappy TV, both unused for weeks at a time.

As the weeks pass and Glenn gets better and better at fighting, he realizes that it’s not the world that’s changing, or that he just hadn’t understood it before, but he’s changing. At work, Glenn’s boss gives him odd pieces of advice and keeps him in the back where customers can’t see the bruises. His coworkers watch him out of the corners of their eyes, trying to figure him out but refusing to talk to him. He suspects that some of them might actually be scared of him. 

Glenn finds it all vaguely hilarious, and says nothing about where the bruises are coming from. No one asks. No one even mentions it. He had never been so calm and focused in his entire life. 

“Uh, Glenn?” 

He turns to see his boss sort of hovering in the doorway and resists the urge to crack a smile. “Yes, Mr. Morgan?” 

Morgan shifts his weight and avoids looking at Glenn’s face too much. “Got a delivery, out in the sticks. It’s pretty out of the way, and Stacy doesn’t want-”

“I’ll take it,” Glenn says, holding out his hand for the slip. Usually he doesn’t like going so far away from town but it doesn’t bother him today. He’s pretty easy going these days, and things don’t really scare him the way they used to. Morgan hands the order to him and sort of edges back out of the room. 

Glenn smirks to himself as he gets everything ready to do the delivery. Stacy doesn’t thank him for taking it for her, but then she hasn’t so much as looked him in the eyes for weeks, so Glenn figures that makes sense. He pulls out of the pizza place parking lot without looking, nearly causing a minor traffic accident. The other driver yells at him from the safety of his car, but drives away when Glenn gets out of his. Glenn laughs and gets back in. All he had wanted to do was apologize, but most people will do anything to avoid a real fight. 

The delivery really is out in the middle of nowhere, and Glenn has to squint hard at the numbers on the scattered mailboxes in order to figure out where exactly he’s supposed to be. The houses are far apart and all look like arson insurance fraud lawsuits waiting to happen. Eventually he finds it, a broken down one story with chipped paint. There’s a couch in the front lawn. He glances back down at the note in his hand. ‘Dixon, M. 2234 Creek Street.’ 

“Fair enough,” he mutters, getting out of the car. The place is a mess. There’s a truck in the driveway that looks like it was literally driven through a swamp. The walkway up to the front door is full of more cans and weeds than it is sidewalk, and Glenn has to admit that he kind of admires the ‘zero fucks given’ vibe this entire property exudes. 

There’s a peeling piece of blue painters tape over the doorbell so Glenn knocks, balancing the pizza so he can fish out the receipt. The door opens. 

“Hi,” Glenn says, still fishing. “I have a delivery from Morgan’s Pizza Palace for…” 

He trails off, having glanced straight up into Daryl’s wide eyes. For a loaded moment, they just stand there in dead silence, both unsure of how to deal with the situation. Eventually, Glenn takes a breath to say god only knows what, but Daryl abruptly reaches out to grab the pizza, throwing a twenty his way like he doesn’t even recognize him.

“Thanks kid,” he says, and shuts the door in Glenn’s face.

Glenn gapes at the door, embarrassment and anger rushing through him in a brief hot wave before it passes. After a second of considering and then rejecting the notion of genuinely being offended, Glenn just picks the money up off the ground and walks back to his car, smirking to himself. Daryl is right. They aren’t the same people outside of Fight Club as they are when they’re there, in the moment. It’s not like they can talk about it anyway, they’re not allowed. He glances around at the property as he goes, considering it in a new light. 

They’ve never really talked about their ‘real lives’ before, and it’s kind of cool to see how Daryl lives when he’s not beating the shit out of his friends in a basement. It’s cool to know his last name is Dixon. Glenn gets back in his car and glances back towards the house. He doesn’t see Daryl peeking out of any of the windows like Glenn would have done from his third floor bedroom. He wonders what Daryl would think about Glenn’s apartment, all his game systems and his books, the shit that makes up his ‘real life.’ He would probably think it was stupid. Even though Glenn sometimes thinks that Fight Club is his real life now. 

***

“Glenn?” 

The voice cuts through all the noise and images in his head and Glenn looks up, back into Officer Grimes’ face. The man is wearing that faux-blank listening expression that people adopt when they want you to tell them something. Glenn blinks, realizing that he had been lost in thought. He glances up at the clock, but it’s stopped. How long had he been sitting in silence? 

Rick sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Are you with me kid?” 

Nodding, Glenn tries to remember where he left off. He knows that he hadn’t mentioned Daryl at all. He probably should, seeing as how they almost definitely know about him. Otherwise they might think he’s leaving other stuff out and he could get in trouble. It feels wrong though, like a betrayal, so Glenn bites his lip and glances away. 

Seeming to notice his hesitation, Rick glances down at the notepad in front of him. “You were talking about what life was like when you were in the club. I’d like to hear more about Officer Walsh.” 

Glenn frowns, sorting through hazy memories. People tended to come and go, especially at the beginning. “Uh…”

“Shane,” Rick says, tapping his pen against the pad. The noise seems louder than it should be to Glenn, taking up a lot of space in the room. 

“Right,” Glenn says, slowly. “Shane was...well he was like second in command.” 

Rick stops tapping the pen. “Under Philip Blake.” 

“Right.” 

“Go on.” 

Glenn glances around the room, nervous again. “I don’t think he ever meant to do anything illegal. He said that Fight Club wasn’t-” 

“Son,” Rick says, leaning back in his chair. The lines on his face look scored deep in the harsh fluorescent lights. “Just get on with it.” 

***

The best part of fighting is the way everything else just melts away. 

Glenn dodges T-Dog’s fist, takes a swing with his own, and thinks about _nothing else_ while he does it. The yelling and stomping fades into a hum that makes up the background of Glenn’s life, and he pushes through it, feeling his entire body all at once. He’s vaguely aware that his nose might be broken, but more aware of the blood on his knuckles that came from a cut on T-Dog’s mouth. He’s alive. 

T-Dog kicks his leg out, catching Glenn in the knee and he goes down hard, prompting a particularly loud yell from the crowd. Glenn wishes that he could have seen it himself. T-Dog falls with him, dropping to his knee to punch Glenn in the face more effectively, once, twice. 

Then he’s gone suddenly, the air he’d been taking up gone cold. 

Glenn sits up, confused. This isn't how things are supposed to go. There are rules. He doesn’t recognize his own voice when he talks. “I didn’t tap out, I still could have-”

“Shut up!” someone hisses, and it’s how nervous they sound that makes Glenn turn his head to see the woman standing at the top of the stairs, gun in hand. 

“Oh,” Glenn breathes, through his mouth because his nose is useless, and someone else hauls him up but the armpits. They drag him into the dark corner and hold him there firmly, dragging a chair over to sit him down in. It’s Daryl, Glenn notices when they’re settled, but he only has eyes for the woman. She's one of the most intimidating people Glenn has ever seen, and he come to a club where people beat the shit out of each other for fun almost every week.

Glenn doesn’t know who she is, but she’s clearly _something_. 

The woman just stands there, staring around at the room with her mouth set in a hard line and her hand wrapped around the gun. Why isn’t Philip saying something? Glenn’s throat starts to close up and he feels himself start to tense, but Daryl’s hand is still wrapped around his arm, holding him down in his seat. So he takes a deep breath and waits for something to happen. 

Eventually it does in the form of Shane bursting in through the door that separates the office from the rest of the basement. Lately he had been spending all kinds of time in there doing god knows what, even during fighting time. The woman raises her eyebrows at the sight of him, but she doesn’t look scared. 

“Hey, Michonne,” he calls out, sounding completely unconcerned. Glenn sucks in a sharp breath, and Daryl jabs him in the kidney with his elbow to shut him up. 

“Officer Walsh,” she responds, lowering her gun slightly. “Funny seeing you here.” 

Shane laughs, but the sound is strained. “I think that’s my line.” 

The woman, Michonne, looks around the darkened room. “Maybe. You want to tell me what’s going on here? I’m sure there’s a good explanation for this.” 

“No explanation needed,” Shane says, leaning against a support beam. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

She raises her eyebrows again. “I seriously doubt that.” She hasn’t completely lowered the gun. 

Shane just shrugs. “Believe what you want. We ain’t got nothing to hide, and we both know it’s not illegal if there’s no money moving around. We’re just having an experience. If you didn’t want to know you shouldn’t have followed me here but you still gotta follow the rules.” 

Michonne scoffs. “Excuse me?” 

“The rules,” Philip calls out, finally speaking up. Glenn looks at him gratefully for breaking the tension and Philip smiles at him briefly before he steps forward and out of the shadows. “We call this the Fight Club, and I won’t bore you with the details...but first timers have to fight and we uh, don’t allow weapons.” He puts his hands up in the air briefly. 

“Is that so,” Michonne says, sounding unimpressed. 

“I’m afraid so,” Philip answers, walking forward to stand beside Shane. They make an imposing pair, but Glenn can see that the woman still isn’t scared of them. “We’re civilized folk here, there have to be rules.” 

“Yeah,” she glances over at Shane, who keeps his expression neutral. “That’s what I always thought too.” 

Eyes wide, Glenn leans back, closer to Daryl’s ear. “Dude I think she’s a cop too.” 

“Yeah I know, shut up,” Daryl hisses back, eyes still fixed on the stairs. He looks like he’s thinking about blocking the door, or maybe making a run for it. Glenn wraps his own hand around Daryl’s arm, his fingers barely wrapping all the way around. He knows that they probably look stupid holding each other's arms like this, but he doesn't care. Daryl glares at him, and Glenn knows he could pull away if he wanted to, but he lets Glenn hold him still. 

“What do you say Michonne?” Philip asks, smiling. “Want to go a few rounds?” 

Her eyebrows shoot up. “With you?” 

Philip laughs, and the sound is warm and welcoming as always. “No, how about with Shane? Go a round or too. I’m sure that working with him would make anyone want to take a swing.” 

Shane rolls his eyes and a few people laugh nervously, including Glenn. Daryl doesn’t. 

Michonne’s gaze turns speculative. “Why? What do I get if I win?” 

“Nothing. It’s all about the road, not the destination,” Philip answers, slowly backing out of the inner circle. The others follow, leaving her and Shane alone. She tracks all of them as they move, her gaze sharp and assessing. 

“No,” she says, tipping her head back, and Glenn sucks in a sharp breath. But then she puts her gun back in its holster and steps out of her shoes, eyes on Shane. “If I win I want something.” 

Shane shrugs. “I don’t think-”

“I want to talk to you about this when it’s over.” Michonne raises her hands slowly, making fists. “You tell me anything I want to know.” 

Shane reaches up and rubs the back of his head. “You know I’ll do that anyway, we ain’t got nothing to hide-” 

“People with nothing to hide don’t usually feel the need to say so.” 

Shane nods, smirking. “I guess so.” He raises his hands as well. “So?” 

Michonne lunges, faster than Glenn would have thought possible. Or maybe he’s not seeing things clearly, T-Dog did beat him pretty good and his ears are still ringing. He can hear Daryl breathing next to him, the rhythm steady and defined, so he focuses on that as he watches the fight. It’s one to remember. 

Michonne clearly has training, moving fluidly from one strike to another. She’s on the offensive, catching Shane with every third hit until he catches her by the arm and sends her flying to the floor. He has training too, and it’s never been more apparent. Glenn holds his breath. There’s something inherently disturbing to him about watching a man hit a woman. Maybe he’s being sexist, he doesn't know, but he flinches when Shane kicks Michonne straight in the stomach. 

Michonne gets back up though, and gives Shane a taste of his own medicine in the form of an elbow to his nose, stunning him. He stumbles back and she gives him a moment to reorient himself before hitting him again, this time landing a kick of her own straight to his stomach. Shane swings for her face but she dodges, dropping low to swipe his legs out from under him. 

Shane goes down hard. Glenn knows he’s imagining it but it feels like he shakes the floor. Or maybe it’s just him that’s shaking. 

The two stare at each other in tense silence for several seconds, neither making another move until Shane slowly reaches over to tap two fingers on the floor. Michonne leans back. “You done?” 

Shane nods. “Yeah I’m done.” He holds out his hand and Michonne frowns at him for a moment before reaching out to haul him to his feet. 

“Let’s go-” 

“No, I gotta stay here and help shut the bar down,” Shane says, meeting Philip's eyes from across the room. He nods. Michonne doesn’t miss it. “I’ll catch up with you Monday.” 

Michonne presses her lips in a hard line. “Fine. I’ll hold you to that.” She turns away, picking up her shoes and gun without another word and heads for the exit. Glenn watches her go, still fascinated. They all do. 

“See you next week!” Philip calls out, and Michonne stops dead on the stairs. 

She turns back. Her eyes sweep across the room, and Glenn feels them like a physical force when they land on him. It makes him dizzy, and for one strange moment she reminds him of Amy, or maybe even his mother, even though she’s nothing like either of them. Michonne blinks and refocuses on Philip. “No, Blake. You’ll be seeing me, but not here.” 

When she slams the door the sound echoes through the basement, and the people stay quiet. 

“Well.” Philip claps his hands together. “That was interesting. I don’t think we’ll see anything better than that tonight, so let’s just call it a day for now.” 

Scattered quiet laughter and murmuring breaks some of the tension, and the group starts drifting apart, the magic of the night over. 

Glenn stands up as well and realizes that his heart is still pounding. He presses a hand against his own chest, feeling the beat. Daryl is still next to him, silent. Glenn turns to him and grins. 

“That was good,” he says, and Daryl snorts, finally letting go of Glenn’s arm. The blood rushes back, making the exact shape of Daryl’s hand burn with pins and needles Glenn knows he’ll feel for ages. He might even have a Daryl-shaped bruise tomorrow. 

Daryl lets out a huff of breath, looking into Glenn’s eyes for a moment before turning away. “Sure, kid.” 

Glenn smiles and follows after him, two steps behind all the way up the stairs.


	4. Trouble Breathing

“So she just left?” Rick asks, leaning back in his chair and considering Glenn intently. Glenn doesn’t blink. 

“Michonne?” Glenn shrugs. “Yeah.” 

A line appears between Rick’s eyebrows. “Just like that?” 

“Yeah.” Glenn slumps down further in his chair, muscles aching. “Just like that.” 

Rick nods and writes something down on his pad of paper. Glenn thinks that he seems pretty pleased, though he doesn’t fool himself into thinking that he’s good at reading the man. Rick sets the pen down and leans forward. “Ok, did you ever see her again?” 

Glenn looks away. “Uh, yeah. Later I did, when everything got really crazy.” 

Rick nods. “Right.” He rubs a hand over his face, and the lines seem to deepen. 

“But it was actually fine for awhile, we didn’t really know what was going on. Until, you know.” Glenn makes himself stop talking and bites the inside of his cheek. 

Rick just blinks over at him, not giving him any help. Glenn stares back helplessly, trying not to dig himself any deeper. Eventually Rick hums and looks back down at the pad. “Ok, well you just sit tight for a bit while I go and speak to someone. When I get back I want you tell me more about when things started to go bad, ok?”

Glenn nods, but he doesn’t think Rick sees it since he’s already walking out of the little room. When he closes the door Glenn closes his eyes, trying to physically calm himself down. Somehow sitting in a chair has become way more stressful than getting punched in the face. He wonders if Daryl is still waiting for him. Glenn sighs and rests his forehead on the table. 

“Probably not,” he says to himself, his voice echoing softly in the metal space. 

***

“God I used to be a coward. Like I used to be so scared of getting hit. All throughout high school and even after, when I would have to go someplace sketchy to deliver pizzas, there was always that innate fear. But now,” Glenn says, gesturing wildly, his heart still pounding from the excitement of the night. “Things don’t bother me the way they used to. People and noise and bullshit just fade to the background.” 

Next to him at the bar, Daryl just nods. He’s quiet, the way he often is after the club closes for the night. Glenn, on the other hand, takes longer to wind down from the high. He grabs Daryl’s shoulder and shakes it.

“Do you know what I mean?”

Daryl snorts. “I aint’ never been scared.” 

Glenn laughs, even though he suspects that might actually be true. “Yeah, ok.” He goes back to peeling the label off his empty beer bottle. 

They’ve taken to having a few drinks together after the fights are done, just to keep the momentum going for a little bit longer before they have to go back. Glenn watches Daryl out of the corner of his eye. He’s also beginning to strongly suspect that Daryl doesn’t really like going home to begin with. They never really talk about their personal lives, but Glenn can tell that he avoids it as much as possible. Possibly because of his brother, who Glenn has never actually met but he suspects gets into a fair amount of trouble from the little Daryl has said. Glenn usually picks up the conversational slack. 

“Do you know what I think?” Glenn asks, still smiling. He sets the bottle down on the bar with a click. 

Daryl side eyes him, looking amused. “What.”

Glenn leans forward. “Fighting is kind of like sex, except there’s a winner.” 

Daryl chokes on his drink and whirls to stare at Glenn wide eyed. “You-” 

Glenn just grins, pleased to have gotten a rise out of him. Pushing Daryl’s buttons is almost as fun as trying to punch him in the face. “I actually stole that from this show-” Daryl takes a swipe at him but he dodges Daryl’s hand easily this time, used to Daryl trying to push him off of things by now. He hops down anyway and makes for the bathroom door. 

“Too slow old man!” he calls over his shoulder, ignoring Daryl’s rude hand gesture. 

Glenn is still laughing quietly to himself as he washes his hands, which are still a bit bloody. The pink tinged water is pretty as it slides down the drain. He gets back to the bar to find that Daryl is gone, which happens all the time. Daryl is always doing stuff like this, sneaking in and out of Glenn’s space without saying a word about it. Glenn rolls his eyes and looks around for Philip but doesn’t see him either. He’s probably down in the back office with Shane again. It doesn’t bother Glenn, so he heads for the parking lot only to see Daryl standing in front of his truck, frowning down into the open hood. 

Glenn grins and jogs over to him. “Car trouble?” For a moment Glenn wonders if Daryl even heard him, but then he knows that he had. 

“Fuck!” Daryl yells and kicks his own tire, which Glenn takes as a yes. He tries to keep a straight face when Daryl looks up so he doesn’t get the shit kicked out of him for the second time for laughing. Not that he couldn't handle it but it’s not really the same outside of the club. Getting beat on isn’t the same as fighting. 

Daryl turns his head and spits on the ground. “Piece of junk.” 

The car really is, but Glenn doesn’t say so. He leans over to peer into the open hood. It’s pretty dark but even Glenn can tell that smoke is coming from places it shouldn’t be. 

“Do you even know what yer’ looking at?” Daryl asks, sounding more and more irritated. 

“Nope,” Glenn says, but keeps looking. “One time my old neighbor Dale tried to teach me some stuff, but I guess I wasn’t that invested.” 

Daryl huffs. “Lazy rich people.” 

Glenn glances up at him, amused. “I’m not rich.” 

Daryl rolls his eyes and slams the hood closed. “Yeah you are.” 

Glenn takes a swipe at him that he easily dodges. “Ok, then do you want to crash at a rich guy’s apartment tonight? There’s a fancy futon that I think you’ll be really excited about.” Daryl visibly hesitates so Glenn presses. “Oh come on, what are you going to do, sleep here?” 

“I could,” Daryl says, but he’s already walking toward Glenn’s beat up old car. It’s not as bad as Daryl’s ancient truck though, so at least that’s something. Maybe he really is rich. Glenn laughs to himself as he starts the engine. 

“What?” Daryl spits at him, his tone defensive. 

Glenn glances over and choses something dumb to say. “I just had to resist the urge to tell you to put your seatbelt on.” 

It works, Daryl actually rolls his eyes and a little bit of the tension leaves his frame. “Loser.” 

“Maybe, but I’m not the one who’s going to die if we get hit,” Glenn points out. 

“Are you planning on crashing?” 

“No, but that’s not what I _said_ so-” Daryl reaches over and shoves him so that he bangs into the door, making him swerve, luckily not into another car. He corrects it and shoots Daryl an empty glare. 

“Nice,” he says, but he’s smiling. Daryl is too, and Glenn feels the familiar rush of warmth that comes with the success of it. He makes it back to his apartment without killing them and leads Daryl up the stairs, unselfconscious about the sorry state of his building. He’s seen where Daryl lives, he obviously doesn't care. 

Daryl follows him through the door and kicks it shut with his foot. “Got any food in this place?”

Glenn makes a face. “Pizza and beer in the fridge, you can have it.” 

“Want any?” Daryl asks, already halfway there. 

“No.” Glenn dives onto the couch face first. “All I see all day is pizza, I never want to see it again.” 

Daryl snorts, his face in the fridge. “Tough, this is why you’re so skinny. You don’t eat,” he says and then stuffs almost an entire piece of pizza into his mouth. 

Glenn smirks. “Ok _mom_.” All of Daryl’s muscles seem to lock down at once and then he throws his beer at Glenn’s head. Glenn leaps off the couch just in time, laughing hysterically. They have a good time after that, but then they always do. They sit together on the couch and watch bad TV until they get too tired, talking and not talking with equal comfort. Glenn relaxes, the ache in his muscles setting in and reminding him of his new found satisfaction just as much as being with Daryl does. 

It doesn’t occur to him until much later that he could have just driven him home, and that Daryl didn’t mention it.

It doesn’t occur to him until he’s laying down in his own room, Daryl curled on on the sofa, that the rush of heat he feels when he makes Daryl laugh or annoyed or even to reach out and touch him might not be solely friendly. 

“Shit,” Glenn mutters to himself, very quietly, staring up at his ceiling in the dark. “I’m in trouble.” 

He’s not exactly sure, but he strongly suspects that having a crush on another member might be against the rules of Fight Club. 

***

Glenn deals with his revelation about Daryl the way he deals with most of his emotional issues, he buries it and moves on with his life. Fight Club stays amazing, Glenn feels better, and he and Daryl start hanging out more. It’s all fine. With Glenn, everything is always fine now. 

“Hit him Glenn!” T-Dog yells and Glenn does, smashing Jim in the face hard enough to make him take a step back. Glenn grins, elated that he could make Jim move at all. Then he gets kicked. 

Glenn always thought the expressions ‘seeing stars’ was bullshit. He knows better now. The breath gets knocked out of him and he drops to one knee, instinctually rolling to the side a second later. Not fast enough. 

Jim gets him by the foot, drags him back far enough to aim another punch. He catches Glenn in ribs and goes back for another. Glenn kicks his leg out to try to sweep Jim’s legs out from under him just like in the movies, which works, kind of. 

They both end up rolling on the floor, over and over until Glenn isn’t sure which way is up or if they’re even in the circle still. They must be, but Glenn can’t tell by his own senses. His ears are ringing. Jim hits him again. Glenn doesn’t mean to, but he goes limp, and the next thing he knows he’s being hauled up by his armpits. 

“Ah, fuck,” he groans, trying and failing to keep his eyes open. 

Jim slaps him on the the back, which barely even registers. “Good fight Glenn.” 

“You too.” Glenn tries to smile at him. “Didn’t mean to stop.” 

They drop him in a chair and forget him, moving on to the next fight with Daryl and T-Dog. Glenn makes the effort to pay attention, because a fight with Daryl in it is always worth watching in his opinion. He puts on a good show as always, they he can’t quite knock T-Dog all the way down he gets in his solid hits. They’ll both be feeling it tomorrow. When it’s over the entire night is over too and Daryl walks in Glenn’s direction, which makes him smile even though his lip is split. Blood drips down his face and he licks it without thinking about it. 

“Hey,” Glenn says, very casually. 

Daryl grunts, possibly because he’s busy wiping the blood off his face. 

“My place tonight? You can eat another entire pizza,” Glenn asks even though they had done it nearly every time since Daryl’s truck had broken down, especially now that Glenn drives them both. 

Daryl snorts and throws the bloody rag into a corner. “Sure.” 

“Cool.” Glenn gets up from his chair so he can get closer and lowers his voice. “By the way, I was thinking about it last night. What do you think happened with that cop lady?” 

Daryl glances over at him with narrowed eyes. “Why?” 

Shrugging, Glenn glances over at Shane quickly and then looks away. “I don’t know, I’m curious and I think that if there’s a problem with the police we should probably-” 

“Stay out of it,” Daryl says firmly. 

Glenn makes a face. “Yeah, ok, but don’t you want to know?”

“No.”

Glenn scoffs. “Oh please, it’s cool.” 

“No it’s not and Shane will deal with it. You shouldn’t mess around with that shit.” 

“What shit? The police?” 

Daryl makes a face and jabs him sharply in the chest with two fingers. “You get that game thing?” 

Glenn smirks at his terrible attempt at a distraction, but lets it go anyway. He doesn’t really want to fight with Daryl. Not verbally anyway. “The xbox game?” 

Daryl rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” 

“Yes, it’s called Drag Race 4 and I got it back from my friend. You’ll like it, trust me.” 

Daryl hums and they head up the stairs together, the pattern well established. They’ll have a few drinks before they head out and then they’ll go back to Glenn’s place. Daryl will eat the majority of a pizza and Glenn will eat whatever Daryl brought for him, usually what seems to be the better part of an entire wild animal. They’ll hang out, sometimes through to the next day and sometimes not. Glenn takes Daryl back to his street or back to his truck if it’s working. It’s fine, it’s comfortable. Up until it isn’t. 

The door handle rattles and Glenn whips his head up, the xbox controller still in his hands. 

“What the-” he mutters but then the door opens to reveal Amy, holding the spare key Glenn had given her in a death grip. Glenn feels his eyes go wide but he scrambles not to show anything. “Oh, hey.” 

“Hey?” she parrots, clearly not amused. “Ok, that’s fine Glenn just-” Amy stops dead, staring at Daryl with wide eyes. There’s a horrible moment of silence, but she recovers, and shoots him a very fake smile. 

“Hi, I’m Amy. Glenn’s girlfriend.” 

Glenn resists the urge to say that no, she isn’t. Technically they’re not together anymore, but he really doesn’t want her to descend into Crazy Amy, which happens sometimes so he just lets that one go. 

“Girlfriend?” Daryl asks, eyebrows raised and teasing clear in his voice. 

Glenn glances at him out of the corner of his eye and then looks back at the screen. “Uh, yeah, kind of.” 

Daryl snorts and keeps playing. “Alright.” 

Glenn feels his face get red and he tightens his grip on the controller when Amy sits on the armrest of the couch, on Daryl’s side. “Anyway, Glenn, I haven’t seen you in awhile.” 

“Uh, yeah.” He doesn’t look up. “I’ve been busy.” 

She makes a vague sort of noise. “Yeah, me too. I got a new job at the mall, so I’ve been doing that.” Amy pauses, clearly waiting for Glenn to respond. When he doesn’t she turns her attention to Daryl. “So do you work with Glenn?” 

Daryl makes another noise, neither an affirmative nor a negative and Amy bobs her head. “Ok. You do still work at the pizza place right? I went by earlier and you weren’t there.” 

Glenn glares at her. “You could have just called, and yeah I do.” 

Amy scoffs. “It’s not like you answer you phone ok, I was worried. Anyway, I came by to see if you wanted to go out tonight. You can bring him,” she says, like Daryl is some pet. 

Glenn narrows his eyes at her. He can feel Daryl shifting around on the couch, clearly uncomfortable. He turns to face her. “Amy, we’re kind of in the middle of something.” 

Her eyebrows climb up her face, slowly. Glenn’s not surprised, he never would have said something like that to her before. “Ok,” she says carefully, her gaze flicking from Glenn to Daryl and back. “See you later I guess.” 

“Bye,” Glenn says and turns back around. She doesn’t leave right away, still staring at him in open curiosity, but finally she goes, letting the door fall shut behind her. Glenn tries not to seem too relieved. He doesn’t want Daryl to think that he’s afraid of Amy, he wants him to think that Glenn’s too cool for her maybe, or just that he’d rather spend time with Daryl, which happens to be the truth. 

Daryl doesn’t look at Glenn when he speaks. “So, girlfriend.” 

Glenn makes a face. “Kind of, not really.” 

“Fine.” Daryl shrugs. His voice is flat, he seems totally uninterested. “Good piece of ass though.” 

“Uh, yeah I guess she has a good...ass,” Glenn finishes lamely. “She’s kind of a bitch though.” 

Daryl snorts and picks up his beer. “I can tell.” 

“I don’t actually like her that much,” Glenn continues and Daryl hums. Glenn feels compelled to keep talking. “She’s awful, and she takes my stuff. We’re not together anymore, she just likes to interfere with my life.” He doesn’t tell Daryl that Amy is the reason he found Fight Club in the first place, that it’s because of her that they met. 

“You sure about that?” Daryl stretches out, putting his filthy shoes on Glenn’s table. “She still has your keys.” 

“Fuck.” Glenn tosses his controller onto the table with a clatter. “I should get those back.” 

“Yeah, unless you want to get robbed, idiot.” 

“Ok, she’s not going to _rob_ me. She’s not that kind of bitch, she’s just...bitchy.” 

Daryl shakes his head. “Whatever, it’s your stuff.” He stands, grabbing the pizza box. “Let’s go.” 

Glenn glares at his back as he walks towards the door, furious at Amy for doing this. His nights with Daryl are the highlight of his week, sometimes even more than Fight Club itself, and now she’s ruined it. He viciously imagines her following him to Fight Club next, trying to be clever, and getting the shit beat out of her. He can see her pretty face and clothes all ruined, and it’s satisfying for a moment, but the satisfaction quickly turns to guilt. Glenn’s hands shake as he locks his apartment. He feels sick, the image taking on a awful, hyperreal quality in his mind, so he buries it, forgets about it. He follows Daryl to his car. 

Being around Daryl helps like it always does. He complains about Glenn’s car every time he’s in it because it’s a ‘girl car’ and the stereo is broken. Glenn rolls his eyes and tells him to get over it, like he always does. It’s peaceful, and Glenn lets go of his anger towards Amy, thinking that it’s not like she’s going to do something worse than she’s already done. It’s not like he’s going to do anything to her either. 

Glenn turns the light off when they get to Daryl’s street and starts to slow down, intending to stop a few houses away from Daryl’s place. 

“Don’t bother, he’s not here,” Daryl says, staring out the window. 

Glenn nods even though Daryl isn’t looking and pulls forward. 

Daryl stays facing the window. “He’s in lockup.” 

Glenn tries to make the most neutral sound possible and stops the car. “Right. Uh, so-” 

Daryl gets out but leaves the door open. Glenn stares after him, knowing better than to follow without permission even though the infamous Merle isn’t here. He curls his fingers tighter around the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white and waits. Eventually, Daryl comes stomping back out of the house, a mesh bag clutched in his hand. 

Glenn smiles and leans towards the open passenger door. “Nice, thanks. What is it?”

“Deer.” 

“Cool, that looks like a lot. Was it big?” 

Daryl snorts. “Yeah, it was a deer.” He drops the bag onto Glenn’s seat. “For the pizza.” 

Glenn smiles up at him and Daryl looks away. “Pretty sure this is worth more than pizza, thanks.” 

Daryl just shrugs, but Glenn thinks he looks pleased. He almost offers to take Daryl back to his house to pick up where they left off, but he doesn’t. That would be transparent, even for him. “Ok, see you next week.” 

Daryl rolls his eyes. “Dumbass, don’t talk about it.” He slams Glenn’s door in his face and walks off. Glenn forgets about all the bad shit and smiles to himself all the way home, blood already pumping for the next round.


	5. Chest Pains

Glenn watches avidly as Randel’s fist collides with Jimmy’s jaw. They’re both pretty new, both completely unpolished and pretty terrible at fighting overall, but it doesn’t matter. Whether it’s Shane’s savagery or T-Dog’s brawling or Daryl’s grace, every one of them finds himself in this. 

Randal hits the floor with a yell and Jimmy jumps down after him, slamming them both into the concrete. The noise of the crowd increases, both in volume and fervor, the energy taking a radical upward spike as Shane yells at them to get up. Jimmy flies back when Randal’s knee collides with his stomach, or maybe his groin, and Glenn winces along with him, knowing exactly how it feels. It seems like he can see himself now in every move they make, in every fight he watches. It makes him itch to join, but he stays where he is, Daryl’s solid weight beside him like an anchor, cheering along as Jimmy loses a tooth.

It doesn’t take long for it to end after that. They have to help Jimmy leave the circle, ushering him off the side to make sure no permanent damage had been done. Glenn slaps Randal on the back as he passes but he doesn’t seem to notice. He has the dazed grin of a man high on adrenaline and fuzzy from getting kneed in the eye socket. Glenn knows how his ears must be ringing, and he wants it for himself. 

He leans forward when Shane steps into the ring, eager for it. 

“Alright, alright,” Shane calls, holding up his hands. The room falls quieter, all eyes trained on Shane, but it’s never silent, not down here. Shane clearly doesn’t care. “We’re going to be doing something a little different this week.” 

Beside him, Glenn hears Daryl grumble under his breath and he smirks. He knows that Daryl likes things to be the same as much as possible. Personally, Glenn can’t stop himself from getting excited about it already. It could be a new rule, or maybe fights with more than two people. Glenn hadn’t gotten a chance to fight yet so he’s nearly bouncing from foot to foot in anticipation. Daryl elbows him in the ribs. 

“Calm down,” he mutters, shooting Glenn a dirty look. Glenn ignores him, eyes on Phillip, who has his hand on Shane’s shoulder now. 

“Alright, settle down,” Phillip says, and the effect is much greater this time. He smiles and Glenn smiles back, even though he’s pretty sure Phillip isn’t looking at him. “Who here goes home and wants to come right back?”

A general sound of agreement ripples throughout the room. Phillip throws up his hands. “Me too! We all like to fight, that’s why we show up to this shitty bar every week am I right?” 

Glenn laughs, along with most of the room. Daryl just snorts. Shane is hovering off to the side, expressionless. 

“This week, you guys have homework,” Phillip says, and gestures to Shane, who steps forward again. “Tell ‘em Shane.” 

Shane grins, like a shark. “Sometime this week you are gonna start a fight with a total stranger. Win or lose, it don’t matter. Just start something.” 

Glenn laughs again, as do a few other of the guys. Most are nodding, or at least smiling. Daryl turns his head and spits, arms crossed. 

“This is the dumbest shit I ever heard in my life,” he says, his voice pitched low for Glenn alone. 

Glenn tilts his head in Daryl’s direction. “Why? It’s funny.”

“No it ain’t.” 

Glenn just rolls his eyes, eager to get on with it. He’s disappointed when Phillip sends them away for the night. He didn't get to fight at all. 

Daryl shoots him a side-eyed glance as they go back up the stairs, but he doesn’t say anything else. Glenn is too irritated to really care. He shoots one last glance over his shoulder before they cross into the bar and sees Phillip and Shane still standing in the center of the room, just watching. Phillip catches his eye and nods, so Glenn nods back. 

They skip their usual post-fight drinking ritual. Daryl seems eager to get going and Glenn can’t be bothered to fight him on it. He groans when they hit the parking lot. Daryl always parks really far away from the bar, off in the shadows. No matter how many times Glenn complains, he always does it. They’ve got Daryl’s truck tonight, finally fixed and mostly running, most of the time. Daryl leans against the cab and lights a cigarette while Glenn kicks at the gravel. 

“I can’t believe he didn’t let me fight tonight,” Glenn complains and Daryl makes a vague sound. “I don’t think I’ve gone a week without getting punched since May!” 

He means it to be funny, but Daryl frowns, the cigarette dangling from his fingers. “You gonna do that dumb as shit assignment?” 

Glenn shrugs. “I’ll probably try, but I think it’ll be harder than they think. Most people don’t want to just fight a stranger.” 

“Yeah, because it stupid.” 

“Maybe I could go to a bar or something, hit on somebody’s girl.” 

Daryl rolls his eyes. “You’re supposed to get in a fight, not get yourself killed.” 

Glenn grins at him. “I think I can take care of myself now.” 

“Against how many guys? You start shit in a bar like you’re talking about and someone’s gonna murder you.” Daryl scowls. “Don’t be such a fucking idiot.” 

It’s more words than Glenn had heard from him all night, maybe even all week. He blinks and looks away, a little embarrassed and hoping it doesn’t show. “Anyway, I’m just saying it sucks I didn’t get to fight tonight.” 

“Neither did I, get over it.” Glaring, Daryl throws the mostly unsmoked cigarette away and jerks the truck door open. 

Something makes Glenn keep talking. “Hey wait, fight me.” 

Daryl turns back around, visibly surprised and maybe a little mad. “What?”

“Yeah.” Glenn grins, shifting from foot to foot. “I didn’t get to fight tonight, and neither did you, so you should fight me.” 

Daryl shakes his head. “Shut the fuck up and get in the truck.” 

“No, come on,” Glenn says, and tries to grab Daryl’s arm to pull him away, which is obviously a mistake. 

The next thing he knows, Glenn is staring up at the sky, which is pretty at least. He grins, the blood rush starting to set in, but when he sits up, Daryl is already slamming the truck door closed. Glenn’s eyes go wide. 

“Shit.” He scrambles to his feet. “Daryl, wait!”

“Nah, I’m done with your bullshit.” Daryl calls through the rolled down window. It’s stuck like that though, it’s not like he rolled it down to talk to Glenn. 

“Oh, come on Daryl.” Glenn groans, trying and failing to get around to the other side of the truck without getting hit. Daryl isn’t looking at him at all anymore. Just as it occurs to him to climb into the truck bed, Daryl is driving away. Stunned, Glenn watches him leave until he’s completely gone, even his tail lights. 

“You’re my ride home.” 

***

“Hey man.” 

Glenn looks up and smile at T-Dog on reflex. T-Dog is always good company. “Hey.” 

T-Dog leans against the wall next to him and smiles back. “You do Shane’s homework?”

Laughing, Glenn shakes his head. “Well I tried.”

“What happened?” 

“Uh-” Glenn glances over in Daryl’s direction on reflex. He doesn’t look like he’s listening, but Glenn knows better by now. “It was just hard you know? It’s not like I could just hit someone out of nowhere. So I tried to pick fight with people first, and then actually fight them, but nobody would take it to the next level.” 

T-Dog’s eyebrows shoot up. “Shit man you’re crazy. I can’t believe you did that.” 

“You didn’t try?”

T-Dog shakes his head. “Nope. Didn’t feel right.” 

“Yeah I guess it was a little weird,” Glenn says and out of the corner of his eyes sees Daryl abruptly stands up from the floor and walk to the other side of the room. Glenn frowns, trying not to look too pissed or freak T-Dog out. It’s not his fault Daryl is being ridiculous. 

They hadn’t talked since Daryl had left Glenn in the bar parking lot last week. Glenn had gotten part of the way home before he realized he should have climbed in through the back window of the bar and used the phone to call somebody. It took him all night to reach town, at which point he just went straight to work, and nearly fell asleep on the ovens. He glares at Daryl from across the room, still pretty mad. Daryl is clearly mad too, but now he’s facing Jim, pretending to ignore Glenn. 

Glenn scoffs and turns away. It’s not his fault, but he knows that Daryl will never be the one to make the first move towards resolving it. He feels like he’s in middle school again, which seems appropriate since Daryl is clearly a child. 

Feeling especially charitable, partly because he’s so pleased to be back at Fight Club but mostly because he doesn’t want to drink alone tonight, Glenn starts making his way to the other side of the room to talk to him. He walks around the patch of floor they’re going to use as the ring instead of walking through it out of habit. Sometimes it seems like a special place, and Glenn likes to treat it that way. But Daryl had clearly been watching him, and mirrors him so that they’re always standing on opposite sides of the space. 

Pissed, Glenn scoffs and looks away. He catches T-Dog watching him with an amused expression and it only makes him madder. Glenn was never really one to get all that angry, but Daryl’s behavior over something so dumb bothers him on a deep level. He clenches his fist tightly, letting his nails cut half moons into his skin, and waits. 

Luckily he doesn’t have to wait for very long. 

Shane surveys the group with his arms crossed after giving the rules. It occurs to Genn that he hadn’t fought for a while either, and he wonders if he’ll name himself. But he doesn’t. “Let’s have Randal and...Glenn.” 

Randal bounces forward, ginning. No doubt running high off his first victory just like Glenn had, weeks before. Glenn walks forward, humming with anticipation that’s sharpening his focus to a point, sizing up his opponent. They have similar builds, lanky and skinny, but Glenn’s skin is thick now. He won’t feel it when Randal comes at him. Randal looks manic, shifting from foot to foot compulsively, but he’s new. When push comes to shove, and it will, Glenn will take him out. 

Smiling, Glenn cracks his knuckles and a smile, letting himself get excited despite his irritation. He barely hears Shane’s yell, their cue to start, just watches when Randal coils to strike. Glenn rushes him first, slamming his shoulder into the other boy’s stomach. 

They go down right away, hitting the floor to the sounds of their brother’s yells of excitement. The watchers always love a good start. Glenn feels high off entertaining them and he resolves to really let himself enjoy this fight, to really let go of everything else. Randal breaks away, rolling like a log towards the crowd. Glenn makes a wild grab for his foot as Randal scrambles up, but Shane’s yelling stops him. 

“No chicken shit moves Glenn!” he yells in his ear and hauls him up by the armpits, planting him on his feet like he weighs nothing. Glenn grins at him and turns back to Randal, a little too late. 

His fist connects with Glenn’s jaw, knocking him a step back. Glenn gasps, tasting blood right away. The dizziness isn’t far behind. He looks up, dazed and trying to find Randal, but sees Daryl instead. 

Daryl holds his gaze for a few seconds before he scoffs and looks away. Suddenly and completely furious, Glenn dodges Randal’s next clumsy punch and slams his knee into his ribs, harder than he needed to. When he doubles over, Glenn slams his elbow into his back, sending him straight to the floor. Lucky for Glenn, he doesn’t go down without a fight. 

Randal punches Glenn straight in the knee, ignoring Shane’s yelling. Glenn yelps and drops, letting Randal get on top of him, landing a few good punches to Glenn ribs that he barely feels, too busy trying to throw him off. Randal doesn’t let up until he gets up, aiming one last kick at Glenn’s stomach, but Glenn grabs his foot and brings him down again. The guys go wild, screaming and hollering. Glenn ignores them, too focused on pinning Randal to hear or see anything else. He gets one of Randal’s arms pinned under his knee and hits him in the face, right where Randal hit him. 

Glenn punches him over and over, hearing the sound of it more than he feels the sensation in his hands, but he can feel the impact rumble of his arm. He can dimly feel Randal’s feeble punches to his left side, but they’re nothing. He keeps hitting Randal, letting everything out at once. It’s not until he’s being hauled up by a man on either side of him, pinning his arms to his side in restraint, that he notices that the room had fallen silent. 

“Man what the hell? You could have really hurt him!” Shane yells in his ear, but Glenn only has eyes for Randal, who is still on the floor. 

“I didn’t, I-” He looks up at Shane helplessly. “I’m sorry.” 

Shane scoffs and turn to Phillip, who had been crouching by Randal’s side. “He ok?” 

Phillip holds up a hand. “He’ll be fine, but he’ll have one hell of a bruise.” Glenn lets out a rush of breath, relieved beyond anything he had ever felt before that he hadn’t seriously hurt him. Or worse. 

“Well Glenn is really hurt,” Shane says, and he sounds pissed. Glenn frowns.

“I’m fine,” he insists and Shane raises an eyebrow at him. 

“You only say that because you can’t see yourself,” Shane mutters and looks back towards the crowd. “Someone get this kid out of here and to a damn first aid kit!” 

Glenn frowns at his back. “Really, I don’t feel that bad.” The blood in his mouth is making it a bit hard to talk, but he doesn’t feel any worse than usual. 

“Shut up,” Daryl says from his other side and Glenn whips his head up to stare at him, wide eyed. He hadn’t realized who else had been holding him. His face gets hot. 

“Daryl I’m-” 

“Shut up,” Daryl growls again and give him a little shake by the arm that he’s still holding. The sudden movement sends a shock of pain through him, particularly in his left ribs, and Glenn gasps. He tries to double over but Daryl holds him up. 

Shane sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Get him upstairs at least and try to see if he needs stitches for that cut.”

Glenn frowns as Daryl leads him away. What cut? Everything is sliding in and out of focus, and it’s hard to maintain a steady pace. Randal is sitting up and staring at him now, mouth open and face wrecked, but Glenn looks away. For some reason, it makes him feel scared, which doesn't make any sense seeing as how he was the one who just beat him into the ground. 

As Daryl all but pulls him up the stairs Glenn notices Phillip looking at him speculatively. It sends a chill up his spine. He looks away, suddenly and mortifyingly embarrassed. 

“Um, you can let go of me now,” Glenn says very quietly as they come out into the bar area, but Daryl ignores him, making a beeline for the door. His grip on Glenn upper arm is hard, it hurts more than his real injuries. Glenn doesn’t bring it up again though, letting himself be dragged through the parking lot and essentially pushed into Daryl’s truck. 

They’re several minutes down the road when Daryl speaks again, startling Glenn so much he jumps. 

“Your car back there?” His voice is gravely, a low growl. 

“No,” Glenn responds quietly, ready to tell Daryl that a friend from work had dropped him off. He had seemed a bit freaked out, but he didn’t ask and Glenn didn’t bother to explain. But Daryl doesn’t ask either, and they spend the rest of the car ride in silence. His head is starting to clear of the endorphins and emotion, and the pain is setting in. Glenn grits his teeth and closes his eyes, gripping the door as hard as he can. At least his focus is coming back, that probably means no concussion. 

Suddenly, the truck door slams and Glenn looks up to finds himself in Daryl’s driveway. He hadn’t even noticed they were going the wrong way from his apartment. Daryl heads through the front lawn and to the door, pulling it open without a key. Glenn shakes his head. Of course he doesn’t lock his door. Glenn watches him disappear, but doesn’t move until he hears him yell from inside. 

“Don’t make me come back for you!” 

Glenn’s eyes widen and he scrambles for the door handle, ignoring the throbbing pain it causes. He’ll be in more pain if Daryl throws him over his shoulder and carries him inside. Keeping his breathing as even as possible, Glenn kicks the door closed and picks his way across the yard, dodging beer cans and other random objects when he can see them and kicking them out of the way when he can’t. It’s dark, the street light in front of Daryl’s house doesn’t seem to work. The lights inside the house shine like some kind of weird beacon for Glenn to follow. 

He pauses on the porch, the farthest into the house he had ever been, and peeks inside. “Daryl? I’m coming in now.” 

“Took you long enough,” Daryl grumbles from what sounds like the right side. Choosing to take that as confirmed permission, Glenn slips inside and closes the door behind him. 

The interior is exactly what Glenn would expect from seeing the exterior, though maybe it’s a bit cleaner. There’s no trash on the floor at least. In fact, there isn’t much of anything laying around. The furniture looks poorly maintained, but it’s clearly very old. Daryl, and apparently his brother as well, don’t care much about their possessions. But the floor and walls are pretty clean, including the carpet, and it doesn’t smell like anything but the outside. 

Glenn is looking at the TV, which is by far and away the nicest thing in the house, when Daryl calls for him again.

“Where the hell are you?”

“Coming!” Glenn limps into the next room, which looks like it was supposed to be a dining room but turns out to be some kind of hunting storage and animal carving room. This one is very messy. Glenn doesn’t stop to explore it though, continuing on to the kitchen where Daryl is clearly waiting for him with a banged up first aid kit. He doesn’t look up. 

“Sit,” he grunts and so Glenn does, staring up at him from the plastic kitchen chair at what must be the table they eat off of. The kitchen looks like a normal kitchen, except that there’s an extra chest freezer in the corner that Glenn is willing to bet is full of meats. Daryl catches him looking. 

“Merle isn’t around.” 

Startled, Glenn looks down. His ribs are really starting to throb now. “I wasn’t going to ask.”

Daryl drops down in the chair next to him and starts pulling out various bandages, salves, and alarmingly, a needle and thread. He pokes and pods at Glenn’s face, frowning the whole time. Glenn can’t take the silence. 

“What’s the prognosis doc?”

Daryl’s eyes dart over to meet Glenn’s and then away again. “You think this is funny?” 

“I’m just trying to-” 

“Don’t do this shit,” Daryl all but growls, looking more pissed by the second. “Don’t go crazy, just...don’t.” 

Glenn leans away. “I-”

“Shirt.” 

“What?”

“Get rid of the shirt.” 

“Oh.” Glenn looks down at himself, at the shirt he doesn’t remember putting on after the fight. It’s on backwards, and it doesn’t look like the shirt he went to the bar in, but when he tries to pull it over his head he nearly blacks out from the pain. Daryl’s hand shoots out and grips his shoulder to keep him upright as Glenn gasps. “Holy shit.”

It doesn’t seem possible, but Daryl looks even more angry, his eyes darkening. “Yeah that’s what I thought. Let’s go.”

Glenn stares up at him when he stands, blinking away tears. “What?”

“Hospital. Let’s go.” 

Glenn groans. “Oh, come on Daryl-”

Out of nowhere Daryl yells and kicks the plastic chair he had just been sitting in at the wall. It bounces off and clatters to the floor. Glenn jumps, and then yells when Daryl hauls him up by the front of his shirt. “You fucking idiot.” 

Glenn tries and fails to pull away. “Jesus Daryl I’m-”

“What? You’re what?” Daryl yells, their faces very close together. Glenn just stares at him, wide eyed and frightened. He’s shaking, and Daryl can probably feel it. He doesn’t answer. 

After a while of tense silence Daryl drops him and stalks out of the room. Glenn stays where he is, waiting to hear the sounds of Daryl destroying his own house, but they don’t come. Glenn stays frozen in Daryl’s kitchen for what seems like a very long time. Eventually, he doesn’t feel like his legs will support him any more and he sits back down in his little plastic chair, eyes fixed on the one that Daryl had kicked. It’s broken. Glenn probably owes him a new one. Daryl doesn’t come back, and the throbbing in his side just gets worse and worse. 

Taking a deep breath, Glenn pushes himself to his feet and slowly makes his way to the only other room in the house he hadn’t been in. The door had been closed before, but now it’s open and Glenn can see Daryl sitting on the edge of his bed. It’s the only bed. Merle must sleep somewhere else. This is clearly just Daryl’s space. He’s not moving, and he doesn’t appear to be doing anything. For some reason it makes Glenn feel worse than everything else. 

“Daryl?”

He doesn’t move. 

“What.” 

“You’re right.” He waits until Daryl looks up to continue. “Can you drive me to the hospital?”

Daryl looks at him for several minutes in silence. It’s all Glenn can do not to squirm, or to say something dumb. Finally, Daryl hauls himself to his feet. “You gonna pull this shit again?”

Glenn backs into the hallway to let him pass. “Nope.”

Daryl shakes his head tiredly. “Fine, get the fuck back in the truck.” 

They go to the ER and Glenn lies to the receptionist, the nurse, and the doctor about how he got hurt. He says he fell down the stairs in his apartment building. It’s not clear if they believe him, but they don’t seem to care either way. Everything looks different, scary, under the harsh lights. Glenn catches sight of himself in shiny surface of the paper towel dispenser and flinches away from it. He gets some x-rays, a prescription for pain meds, and his broken ribs bound up in tape and bandages. 

Back in the car, Glenn watches Daryl out of the corner of his eye. He’s gripping the steering wheel so tightly that Glenn’s a little nervous that it will break. Sighing, Glenn rests his arm on the door, and his hand lands in something sticky. He doesn’t have to pick it up again to know that it’s his own blood. He lets out a shaky breath. 

“Hey Daryl?” Glenn asks, very quietly. When he doesn’t respond, Glenn presses on anyway. “I’m sorry.” 

Daryl acts like he can’t hear him, but he drives Glenn home, to Daryl’s home, and tells him to sleep on his couch. They don’t talk for the rest of the night, but the next morning Daryl gives him some food and drives him back to his apartment for work, accepting a free pizza without a fight. He comes over again that night and they play video games. When Saturday rolls around again, Glenn is surprised when Daryl shows up at his place instead of going to the bar to fight. Glenn clearly can’t go, not with his injuries, but he hadn’t expected this. He knows better than to comment on it though, stepping back to let Daryl inside but he shakes his head. 

“We’re going night fishing, get your shit.” 

Glenn smiles and throws on a jacket, mindful of his ribs. He’s never heard of night fishing before, and he’s pretty sure fishing isn’t really something he would do on his own, but Daryl had been smiling slightly when he said it so Glenn’s pretty sure he’ll enjoy it. 

Things are ok again after that. Until they aren’t. 

***

It’s the sound that wakes Glenn up. He’s usually a pretty deep sleeper, especially after fights, but something is different. He sits up in bed, frowning. Daryl is spending the night again. Nowadays they alternate, especially when Daryl takes Glenn out into the woods for some kind of animal related activity. Daryl calls it Glenn’s ‘man training’ and Glenn like it more and more every time. Turns out Merle is still in jail, so they don’t have to worry about him. It seems to Glenn that Daryl is pretty relieved, even if he doesn’t say it. 

Tonight they’d been playing games and drinking beers for the past several hours until Daryl finally passed out on the couch. Glenn had laughed as quietly as he could as he took a picture on his phone, knowing that Daryl would literally murder him if he knew. It was worth it though. Besides, Glenn can keep a secret. 

He slips out of bed, worried that the weird noises are hints of something bad, like maybe a robbery. Baseball bat in hand, he all just jumps into the living room. Then he freezes, mouth open. 

“What the fuck.” 

Daryl and Amy both look up, one on top of the other. Amy is naked, Daryl is still mostly clothed. On the couch in Glenn’s apartment. At least Amy has the grace to scream and jump off, scrambling for her pants. Daryl just frowns at him. 

“You knock ever?”

Glenn scoffs, disbelieving. “It’s my apartment!” 

Amy skitters up to him, her shirt on backwards and her eyes wild. “Look, I’m really sorry-”

“Sorry?” Glenn throws up his hands and Amy jumps back, wide eyed. Probably because he’s still holding the bat. “God Amy what’s wrong with you?”

She visibly pales, turning white as ghost. “Well I came here to see you-”

“Get out!” Glenn yells, finally losing the last shred of his patience, and she runs for the door, leaving it open behind her. Fuming, Glenn rounds on Daryl but finds him gone too. “Unbelievable.”

He follows Daryl into the kitchen area, still furious, but calmer now that Amy is gone and Daryl has his pants on again. Daryl eyes him speculatively when he stops in front of him, arms crossed. “What?”

Glenn leans away, shocked, then he get close. “What do you mean what?”

Daryl squints at him. “I mean what’s the big deal? You don’t even like her.”

Glenn’s eyebrows shoot up. “She’s my ex.” 

“What are you, a girl? Daryl shrugs. “You said all this shit about her. Why do you even care?”

It’s the shrug that does it for Glenn. The next thing he knows he’s throwing the bat as hard as he can in Daryl’s general direction. It goes so wide Daryl doesn’t even have to move and smashes through the window. Daryl looks shocked, spinning around see the glass fall. “What the- Glenn!” 

But Glenn is already gone, running down the stairs and out into the night. He ignores Daryl’s obvious attempts to get his attention, ignores the sound of his boots on the stairs, chasing after him. Glenn scowls and keep going. Daryl might be stronger than him, but he’s a lot faster. 

It only takes a few streets to lose him. Glenn runs until even his yelling fades away. Then he stops in a random parking lot, breathing hard and pretty much lost in his own city. 

“Shit,” he breathes, looking around. It looks like every other city parking lot he’d ever been in. The only good thing about it is that Daryl isn’t in it too. Mad at Daryl and Amy and also himself, Glenn sit on the dirty ground and puts his face in his hands, groaning. 

The images just won’t go away. More than that, the feeling that he’s been an absolute idiot about everything. He knows why it bothers him so much, and it doesn’t have much to do with Amy. Glenn punches the ground, trying to imagine punching Daryl. Or anyone. He growls and gets back to his feet, the nervous energy making him pace.

“You ok?” someone calls out and Glenn whirls around, startled. The guy is standing a few feet away, frowning at him. 

Glenn rocks back a step, surprised not to be alone. “Uh, yeah. I’m good.” 

“Good,” the other guy says, and pulls a knife out of nowhere. Glenn stares at it dumbly. “So give me all your shit.” 

Glenn blinks at him. “What?”

“You heard me.” 

“I don’t have anything.”

The man sneers. “Bullshit.” 

Glenn scoffs. “You’ve got to be- I’m not even wearing shoes!” he yells, suddenly furious again. It’s true, he had run out of his apartment in his pajamas and without shoes because he was pissed at his friend who is apparently not even really his friend because friends don’t do that to each other. Especially not when they both clearly have _something_ between them, even if they don’t talk about it. 

The man leans away slightly. “Turn out your pockets.” 

“No.” Glenn glares at him. 

“What?” 

Glenn hands curl into fists at his sides, the familiar rush settling in. “I said no, what are you going to do about it?” 

The man stares at him dumbly. “I have a knife.” 

“Then get over here and use it asshole I’m not kidding!” Glenn yells again and the man jumps about a foot in the air. 

He shakes his head. “You’re crazy.” 

“Yeah?” Glenn says and then rushes him, moving as fast as he can. He doesn’t think about what he’s going to do when he gets there, letting instinct take over. The would-be mugger’s eyes widen and he holds the knife out in front of him like a flashlight, arm straight. Then he drops it and takes off, sprinting out of the parking lot. 

Glenn follows him, kicking the knife out of the way as he goes. There’s something about the way the man nearly trips over his own feet when he sees Glenn coming that makes him grin like an idiot, and something about the way he stops and turns around when he realizes Glenn is absolutely going to catch him that makes Glenn’s heart race. He comes at Glenn swinging in the middle of the deserted street, fight or flight clearly decided, and Glenn gives back as good as he gets, but realizes too late that this is new and terrifying. 

It’s a real fight, not something staged in the basement of a dirty bar. They’re both hopped up on fear and adrenaline, not pulling punches. Glenn gets a knee to his mostly healed ribs when he tries to kick the guy’s legs out from under him. He doubles over and the guy grabs him by the hair, hauling him back up. It’s not something that would be allowed under Phillip’s supervision, and Glenn wonders dimly if he’s going to die. He lashes out blindly, only knowing that he’s hit some target when the man yells and grabs for his face, dropping Glenn in the process. 

“Hey!” Daryl yells, his feet audibly pounding on the pavement, and Glenn whirls around. For some reason seeing him is the strangest part of the entire experience, and he frowns at him. Then of course he gets a foot in the back and goes down, but Daryl is already there, full on tackling the other guy in the ground. 

The rest of it is a blur, just a jumble of pain and yelling. Daryl and Glenn together are pretty much unstoppable though, and Glenn’s sure that they’re going win. 

“Freeze! Police!” 

They do freeze for a split second. All three of them look up like guilty children, wide eyed and fearful, and then scramble to their feet all at once. Daryl grabs Glenn by the arm and pulls him in the direction of the alley. Glenn goes without a struggle, single mindedly focused on not getting arrested. The guy they left behind isn’t so lucky, which is good for them, but Glenn nearly stops dead when he hears Shane’s voice. 

“Hey! I said stop!” It’s unmistakable. Glenn starts to turn, but lucky for him he has Daryl, who isn’t stopping for anything. 

They make it all the way across town before they decide it’s safe to double back. Glenn has never run this much in his entire life. There’s no way he would have been able to do it a few months ago, but he has new standards for bodily discomfort. All he has to do is follow Daryl, which is the easiest thing in the world sometimes. Still, it feel like his heart is pumping battery acid by the time the reach the shadow of Glenn’s building. 

Daryl doesn’t seem nearly as wrecked, but he has his hand on his knees, bent over and breathing hard. They standing very close together, Daryl having just let go of his am seconds before. Glenn lets his head fall against the brick wall and shakes it back and forth, amazed. 

“So that was Shane right?”

Daryl sort of wheezes and nods. 

“Do you think he recognized us?” 

Another nod. 

“Shit. I guess we finally completed his homework assignment though,” Glenn breathes out finally, still gasping, heart pounding. He grins at Daryl, blood streaming down his face. Daryl snorts and shakes his head, straightening up. Glenn doesn’t want him to go away, so he tugs him closer by the sleeve of one of his own shirts. 

Daryl lets himself be pulled and leans against the wall next to Glenn, staring at him, then he leans over and kisses him.

Glenn gasps and shifts his grip from Daryl’s sleeve to his shoulder, pulling him forward. Daryl comes easily, kissing Glenn like a man possessed. It’s all Glenn can do to keep up. Daryl keep moving, changing the angle, pressing hard and then soft. He wraps his hand around the back of Glenn neck and holds him still. When they break apart Glenn’s eyes are wide and his heart is somehow beating even faster. Daryl tries to step back, but Glenn follows him, crowding him against the wall. 

“Woah. I-”

“Shut up,” Daryl says, grinning at him like he only does when he’s fighting. “Don’t talk about it.” 

Glenn grins back and leans back into him, letting Daryl force his mouth open with his tongue. He can live with that. His ribs are throbbing, they’re probably going to have to go to the ER again. Glenn will lie and say he fell down some steps or something normal like that, but for now he smiles into the kiss when Daryl bites his lip.

He doesn’t tell Rick that part.


	6. Black and Blue

_Don’t talk about it_ becomes the central theme of Glenn’s entire life. 

The next week at Fight Club, he catches Shane staring at him. They stay on opposite sides of the room and don’t say anything to each other. Daryl doesn’t mention it either, just goes about his business, has a few good fights, and pushes Glenn up against the dark side of his truck after they’re sure everyone else has left, licking into the inside of his mouth and biting bruises onto his skin. They go home together, sitting closer in the truck than they used to. 

Glenn doesn’t talk about any of it. He spends the intervening time between Fight Club, Daryl, and his job playing the same video games over and over in silence, watching familiar patterns play out on the screen. He gets a letter in the mail telling him his grandparents on his mother’s side who still live over in Korea have both died, and throws it out, doesn’t say anything. Other things just don’t seem as real as before. 

Fight club is as strong as ever, and Glenn gets stronger with it. The nights blur together in a haze of adrenaline and high powered happiness that comes from beating the shit out of his friends. He jumps up and down next to Daryl, who is still beside him, watching two newbies hit the floor. Glenn finds that he is more excited that he can wrap his arm around Daryl’s shoulders and not get shaken off. 

“Alright guys, good fight,” Shane calls out and Glenn’s head swivels towards the sound like a dog hearing a whistle. Daryl huffs and rolls his eyes at his reaction, so Glenn leans into him, letting him feel his weight. Daryl leans back for a second and then steps away. 

Shane claps his hands together. “Ok so I want…” 

He trails off like he’s deciding, but Glenn is pretty sure that he works out all the pairings ahead of time with Philip. The buildup of anticipation works on him anyway, and he rolls onto his toes. Daryl stays perfectly still. 

Shane smirks, glancing in their direction. “Glenn and Daryl.” 

Next to him, Daryl snorts and starts pulling off his shirt, but it surprises Glenn so much that he forgets to move at all. T-Dog prods him in the back, prompting him to move. His shirt and shoes are already in a pile on the floor, so he just has to step into the circle, walking to the far side to face Daryl, who is smirking at him. Glenn grins back. They haven’t fought in weeks, maybe months. Glenn curls and uncurls his fists, thinking back. Come to think of it, they hadn’t fought each other since the very first night. 

This fight is not like the first one when Glenn was so scared and hadn’t been hit in any serious way since middle school. He’s different now, obviously, but it’s Daryl who surprises him. Looking at him from across the circle with everything else the same, the same yelling, same heart pounding excitement, Glenn notices that Daryl looks different too. The hard set of his jaw is absent, as is the icy look in his eyes. His hands are up, but the line of his shoulders is relaxed and ready to move instead of locked in. Glenn bounces from foot to foot and watches Daryl sway slightly in response, mirroring him. They move at the same time, on the same exhale. 

He gets a fist to the side right away and Daryl dodges his answering swing. Some things never change. Growing up with this kind of violence puts Daryl on a level that Glenn can never really attain. He makes a wild swing, figuring that Daryl knows him too well and trying to be unpredictable, but Daryl dodges again, grinning like a maniac. Then he punches Glenn in the face, sending him straight to the floor. Glenn yells and flails and tries to use it as a cover to sweep Daryl’s legs out from under him. He catches Daryl’s left with his right and makes him stumble, but he doesn’t fall. 

“Don’t be cute Glenn!” someone yells, which just makes him laugh. 

He scrambles up and throws himself at Daryl blindly, colliding with him shoulders to stomach. All the breath leaves Daryl in a rush, but they don’t fall like Glenn had intended. Hands wrap around Glenn’s arms to pry him off, so he slams his knee upwards as hard as he can into Daryl’s stomach, knocking the wind from him for a second time. It’s enough to make Daryl double over, wheezing. Glenn scrambles to bring his shoulder down into Daryl’s now exposed back, but Daryl catches him in the side first, knocking him off balance. When he tries to follow up with another hit, Glenn dodges out of the way, giving up his ground, but it’s worth it to not be knocked _into_ the ground. Lose the battle to win the fight. 

As Glenn backs up, Daryl moves forward, matching Glenn step for step. He takes swing after swing, and eventually overreaches, just like Glenn knew he would from avidly watching him fight every weekend for the past several months. Faking to the left, Glenn quickly corrects around Daryl’s swing and punches him as hard as he can in the jaw. Daryl rocks back, wide eyed and clearly surprised. Then he grins, and charges again. 

In the end, Glenn still loses, but it’s on more equal terms. More like a dance than a demolition. 

Even more is different this time, it’s Daryl who pulls him up, grinning and bleeding from a cut over his eye, and Daryl who pushes him towards the door. “Time to go.” 

Glenn’s eyebrows fly up. He’d never left the club early before. “But it’s not done.” 

“We’re done,” Daryl says, quietly, and pulls him up the stairs. No one but Philip seems to notice or care, so Glenn waves to him absently, caught up in following Daryl. It doesn’t occur to him to stay, not when Daryl clearly wants to go. Philip nods back to him, a contemplative look in his eye. 

Daryl drags him out back door of the bar and into the woods. It’s dark, the kind of dark Glenn would never walk into by himself, but Daryl seems to know where he’d going and he’s got his hand wrapped firmly around Glenn’s to pull him along. Glenn follows silently, blood and adrenaline still rushing from the high of the fight and the anticipation of what he’s pretty sure is about to happen. It’s that or Daryl is about to kill him. Either way Glenn is along for the ride. 

Finally, Daryl stops in what seems to be a completely random clearing. It appears to be slightly brighter in this part of the woods because of the break in the trees, or maybe Glenn’s eyes have just started to adjust. He squints around, trying to decide if there’s anything here, but then Daryl pulls him close and he stops caring. 

Glenn finds himself crowded up against a tree, pinned by the ribs and bracketed by Daryl’s legs. He tries to push back, to find some friction, but Daryl is too strong to be moved and apparently too involved in biting Glenn’s neck to want to be moved. Glenn settles for tipping his head back and sliding his hands up the back of Daryl’s shirt instead, feeling the patchwork of scars that had intrigued him every time Daryl stripped down for Fight Club. He knows exactly what they look like under flickering strip lights, and now he knows what they feel like too. 

Daryl pulls away from Glenn’s neck to kiss him, eyes closed and hands busy with tugging Glenn’s shirt up around his torso so he can press his thumbs hard into Glenn’s nipples. They’re familiar enough with each other that Daryl knows what Glenn likes, and he really likes Daryl manhandling him. Glenn cries out, unafraid that anyone might hear them and come investigating. Daryl would never risk discovery by bringing them somewhere they’ll be heard, so Glenn lets himself be loud. Maybe that was the idea all along. 

“Ah- Daryl,” Glenn pants, nearly whining until Daryl takes control of his mouth again, forcing it open and pressing inside. It feels starkly familiar to the fight they just had not thirty minutes ago, all pushing and pulling and semi-staged. But this time they can go a step farther, and the knowledge that they can be completely unrestrained makes them both breathe harder and struggle as close as they can, because they can. The night air makes his clothes stick to his skin where they still cover him, and it feels like he might as well be breathing water. 

Daryl’s hands abruptly drop down to waist level, and it takes Glenn’s foggy mind a few seconds to realize that he’s trying to undo both of their pants at the same time. Giddy horny as he is, Glenn giggles and reaches down to help, but only really succeeds in getting in the way. Daryl pushes him back up against the tree with the flat of his hand and leaves it there, pinning him while he gets his belt undone. Glenn’s heart pounds the entire time, trying to beat it’s way out of his chest. He’s sure Daryl can feel it in his hand. 

Finally, Glenn’s pants are undone too, and then his pants and underwear are pushed down around his ankles. Daryl collapses in on him before he can try to step out of them, pressing up against him, skin against skin. He reaches down and arranges them so their dicks are pressed together, making Glenn gasp when he pushes against him. Daryl makes a low rumbling sound and does it again, one hand holding Glenn by the hip. He ruts against Glenn, with him, until they’re both groaning and panting. Hyped up and over stimulated as he is, it doesn’t take long for Glenn to be pushed over the edge. 

Soon after, Daryl’s rhythm starts to break up, becoming stuttered and more forceful. He leans in as close as he can get and bites Glenn on the neck again as he comes, making Glenn shake with residual arousal, like an echo. He leans his head back against the tree, feeling lightheaded. They’d never done anything like this before. 

Daryl lets out a sigh and starts to pull away. Some kind of panic grips Glenn and he tightens his arms instead of letting him go, one hooked around his neck and the other gripping his hip. He’s strong enough to fight, but not strong enough to hold Daryl Dixon somewhere he doesn’t want to be. Daryl tenses for a split second and then relaxes again, leaning back into Glenn’s grip. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Daryl says, into Glenn’s neck. His voice is gravelly. Glenn can feel his lips move against his skin, and shivers. 

Glenn smiles, feeling Daryl’s hair on his face as he moves. They both reek, and Glenn at least is bone tired. “Yeah totally, my place or yours?”

“Don’t matter.” Daryl bites him, the sting making Glenn hiss and then sigh. “And I meant let’s get out of town. Let’s just go.” 

Daryl’s hands are on Glenn’s body and his teeth are on his neck probably feeling how hard his pulse is pounding and there are tons of things that Glenn could have said. A few that would have even been the correct thing to say. 

What he actually says is, “What about Fight Club?” 

Daryl doesn’t take his hand on the way back, leaving Glenn to stumble behind him in the blackness. 

Things stop getting better after that. 

***

Philip stands in front of them with his hands on his hips. He’s looking at the dirty floor, apparently ignoring the dozens of eyes on him. Glenn wants to bounce or fidget, or anything, something, but he doesn’t want to draw any of the attention onto himself. 

They’d had another police visit. 

It wasn’t Michonne, just some male cop with a generic Georgian accent and a hat. Shane had been able to intercept him before he got down more than two steps, but it was still bad. It made Philip look bad. It made Glenn feel like they were doing something illegal, even though he’s still pretty sure they aren’t. He’s not sure what it makes Daryl feel. They hadn’t really been talking. Fucking, sure. But not talking. 

Philip drops his hands and looks up. “I’m disappointed.” 

No one moves or makes a sound. Glenn risks a glance a Daryl, who looks exactly the way he does when they go hunting together. He might as well be carved out of wood. Philip starts to pace, drawing Glenn’s attention again. 

“We can’t be sloppy. Ok? We need to close ranks here. They’re out to get us.” 

Glenn frowns, not sure who he means. The police, probably. But they hadn’t been doing anything wrong. If the police could have pinned something on them, they would have done it after Michonne, right? He glances around, unsure, and sees some of the others doing the same. Philip doesn’t seem to notice. 

He runs his hands through his hair, pulling on it hard. Then he suddenly straightens up. “Ok. Do you guys know what I like to do when I get frustrated? Fight.” He says, without waiting for a response. Glenn smiles when Philip meets his eyes. Then he turns away again. 

“Who hasn’t gotten to fight tonight? Or who just wants to fight?” 

People raises their hands, including Glenn. He can’t help but notice that Daryl doesn’t, which is a shame. Glenn had always wanted to see the two go at it. He’s honestly not sure who he thinks would win. Philip makes a show of scanning the crowd. 

“What about Jim?” he calls, and Glenn turns to see Jim shrug and straighten up from the wall. 

Someone next to Glenn mutters, sounding jealous. “He didn’t even have his hand up.” 

Jim moves forward slowly, stepping into the circle with his hands in his pockets. Philip looks him up and down, then he strikes. Jim gets his hands out of his pockets, but not quickly enough. They go down, and Philip pulls him back up. Then they go down again. There’s not much cheering outside of the circle, and Philip is silent, landing punch after punch it Jim’s face and body. It’s over quickly. 

Philip stands, still breathing hard. Jim stays down. Glenn can’t take his eyes off him. He looks just like Randal after Glenn had beaten him, maybe even worse. He looks like what Glenn might have looked like if Philip had picked him. 

“You guys have another homework assignment,” Philip says, leaning heavily against one of the support beams. Glenn drags his eyes up from Jim’s body, still breathing, but wrecked. T-Dog and another man Glenn doesn’t know haul him up by the armpits and hustle him towards the stairs. Glenn glances over at Daryl again, but finds him gone, off closer to the door and in the shadows, staring back at him. Glenn blinks and looks away. Shane hands Philip a rag, and he scrubs his face with it before dropping it to the floor. 

“You all are going to go out and create a public disturbance. It can be anything, but you’re going to disturb the peace the way that peace just disturbed us.” Philip leans against one of the support beams, arms crossed. The flickering light from the fluorescents in the ceiling hits him in a weird way, making his eyes seem sunken in and dead. Glenn looks away. 

A few feet away, Shane mirrors Philip, and says nothing. Glenn feels his eyes darting from one to the other without really processing anything. Some of the guys are shifting around, uncomfortable, while others are leaning forward, clearly interested. Glenn’s eyes flick back to Daryl's corner. He’s not one of the interested ones. 

Abruptly, Philip claps his hands together, making Glenn and a few of the others jump. A low self-conscious laugh travels through the room. Philip smiles at them. “Alright you assholes, see you next week. Get out of here.” 

He waves and turns towards Shane, who still hadn’t moved. Some of the members wander over to them only to get turned away. Most head for the stairs, Glenn included. He can feel Daryl’s stillness in the way he watches him, staying frozen until Glenn reaches him and then following silently. He stays directly behind him, even though there’s plenty of space. 

When they reach the ground floor, Glenn glances towards the bar. T-Dog and Jim are sitting in one of the booths next to it. Jim’s face had swelled up like a beachball, but Glenn smiles to see him sitting up. T-Dog waves, beckoning them over, but Daryl waves him off and pushes Glenn in the direction of the door. Glenn starts to turn, confused, but Daryl just prods him in the back, so he goes. 

They walk across the parking lot and get into the truck. Glenn glances over at Daryl, who is hyper focused on getting it started and moving, not looking back at him at all. They drive in silence for a while. The clock in Daryl’s truck doesn’t work, so Glenn doesn’t know what time it is or how long they go, but it feels like a long time. Eventually, Glenn’s heart slows and he turns in his seat. Daryl doesn’t. 

“So, uh, that was pretty intense.” 

Daryl breathes out harshly and tightens his grip on the steering wheel. 

“Do you think Jim is going to be ok? I think he’ll be fine.” 

Again, no answer. Glenn taps his fingers nervously against the peeling armrest. Daryl’s silences don’t usually bother Glenn all that much, but ever since that night in the forest they’re getting to him more and more. Tonight, it’s like bugs under his skin. It’s like trying not to pick at a scab. Even though he knows that he can’t make Daryl talk to him, that it only makes him quieter and more annoyed, he keeps trying. 

“I don’t like that another cop showed up. Do you think Shane knew him?” More silence. Glenn looks out the window. “I can’t decide if I should try to do the homework assignment or not because-” 

Suddenly Glenn jerks forward, his seatbelt slamming into his chest and holding him back. He gasps, confused and panicked until he realizes that Daryl must have stomped the brakes. They’re stopped in the middle of the road. 

He whips around, furious and still residually scared. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Me?” Daryl yells back, and Glenn jerks back, eyes wide. Daryl yells a lot, but not usually at him, not anymore. “What’s wrong with you?” 

Glenn tries to lean away, but he’s trapped in the small cab of the truck. “I-”

“You ain’t seriously thinking of going back there are you?” 

Glenn blinks, taken aback. “Well, I mean-”

Daryl scoffs, not letting him finish, and turns back to face the road. “Course you are. Fucking idiot.” 

Feeling his face heat, Glenn reaches out and punches Daryl in the shoulder as hard as he can. It barely moves him, but Daryl wheels around and smacks Glenn in the face anyway, knocking him back. His head hits the window, sending splintering pain down from the back of his head to his shoulders. 

“Ow, jeez.” Glenn sits up and rubs at the back of his head, checking for blood. There is none, which is good, but when he looks back at Daryl he sees him staring back wide eyed, his hand still frozen in the air. 

“Daryl?”

Daryl’s hand drops, going back to the steering wheel and gripping tightly. “I’m done.” 

Glenn undoes his seatbelt and leans forward, confused. “What?”

“You heard me, I’m done with this shit.” 

“Are you kidding?” Glenn asks, voice cracking slightly at the end. Daryl winces, then scowls. 

“No, and if you had any sense you would quit too, but you don’t, so-”

Glenn scrambles for the door handle and wrenches it open, spilling himself out onto the cracked pavement. He slams the door shut, drowning out Daryl’s yell, and takes off. Part of him expects Daryl to come after him, but he doesn’t.

An even bigger part of him expects to see Daryl the next week at Fight Club, but he doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr if you want :)  
> http://paradiamond.tumblr.com/


	7. Fading Bruises

Daryl never comes back, but Glenn sticks around. 

He doesn’t really know what else to do, so he just keeps on doing what he’s been doing. It only takes another four days for him to get fired from the pizza place. Morgan had seemed more sad about it than anything else, but Glenn really just didn’t care. It’s not like it comes as a surprise. He gets another shitty job that he barely shows up to and scrapes by. 

His nights at Fight Club stay mostly the same, comforting in their consistency. He had been afraid that with Daryl gone, it would have lost it’s appeal, but the club no less thrilling without him, it’s just the other hours that are worse. He doesn’t have anyone to go home with now. Still, he keeps busy, and does most of Philip and Shane’s homework assignments. They produce a similar feeling, especially when the members do them in groups, the shared adrenaline carrying them through together. 

That’s when Glenn misses Daryl the most, but he can’t imagine Daryl ever participating in missions to destroy corporate art, or hack into traffic signals. Or stealing a car, which is what Glenn intends to do tonight. The car itself belongs to some high ranking city official, but Philip says that hijacking it and moving it to a more dangerous part of town to be ransacked for parts will send a message. What Philip says is usually right, and he’s done so much for Glenn personally, so he agreed to be part of the team. 

His heart pounds as he’s closing the door to his apartment, excited already. 

“Glenn?”

He whirls, hands flying up on instinct. Standing five feet away and clearly on her way to his place is Amy, because of course it is. She blinks at him, his keys in her hand. “What are you doing?”

Glenn glances around. They’re alone, which is really the only good part. “Nothing. What are you doing?” 

“Returning your keys and apologizing for last time,” she says slowly, clearly distracted. Glenn can feel her eyes on him like a physical touch. “You cut your hair? You look like a criminal Glenn.”

He briefly considers telling her that technically he’s almost criminal and it’s none of her business before deciding against it. All he can see when he looks at her is her in Daryl’s lap, his hands on her ass. He starts to walk away from her but she steps into his path, eyebrows raised. 

“Uh, excuse me? I was talking to you.” 

Glenn tries to go the other way, but she blocks him again. He glares. “Ok, what?” 

Amy puts her hand on her hip, the one still holding his keys. “What’s wrong with you? You used to be nice. I don’t even know what you are anymore.”

He leans away, two instincts warring in him at the same time. “Yeah, well, you didn’t know me all that well to begin with, so.” 

Amy scoffs. “Bullshit. I know I wasn’t the best girlfriend but I do care about you and I did know you. What the hell are you doing?”

He doesn’t have an answer for her, not one that makes sense. He runs through the possibilities in his head. I’m a part of an underground fighting ring. I’m out here doing a homework assignment for a corrupt cop. I’m having a panic attack because I’m gay and fucked up my one chance at a real relationship with the guy I might be in love with. He can’t say any of these things, so he says nothing. 

Amy takes a step closer to him, and he flinches back, expecting a strike. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Glenn?”

“I can’t say. I-” His eyes dart around, looking for something, anything, to take the attention off of him. “I can’t tell you. I’m not allowed and there’s nothing I can say that won’t freak you out worse.”

Amy nods, keeping calm even though he can tell that she’s freaked. “Ok. Can you say it to anyone?”

He shakes his head. 

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it at all,” she says bluntly and reaches towards him. He’s already taking a step back before he realizes that she’s just holding out his keys. She frowns. 

“Oh, thanks,” Glenn says slowly. He takes them and puts them in his pocket. 

“You’re welcome,” Amy says automatically. “I’m sorry for what happened. I didn’t know me being with Daryl would bother you, and I didn’t mean to step on your toes.” 

Glenn stares at her. “Thanks. Again, I guess.” 

She nods. “Ok.” 

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

“I know.” 

He nods back to her. “Ok, I have somewhere I have to be, so.” 

She shrugs. “Me too. Take care of yourself.” 

“Thanks,” Glenn says for the third time, and Amy leaves. He stares after her, aware that he should be getting to the meet up point if he wants to be on time. The guys will be waiting for him. 

He turns around and goes back into his apartment. 

***

Rick comes back. 

You know,” Rick rubs his hand over his face as he drops back into his chair. “Letting out aggression can be a good thing, but this kind of behavior, it’s just not good son.” 

Glenn’s hands are shaking. His neck hurts, everything pretty much hurts. It’s way too cold in the interrogation room, like their over air conditioning it on purpose. He wants to punch Rick in the face. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

“Good. Walk me through what happened next.” 

Glenn glances away. “Ok so, uh, Michonne got Philip. Or at least that what T-Dog said that Shane said.” 

“You weren’t there?” 

He shakes his head. “No I stopped going a while ago. So did T-Dog, but I stopped first. We ran into each other on the street and he told me.” 

“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk about it.” 

“We’re not.” 

Rick nods and taps his fingers on the table. “Why did you quit?”

Glenn shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Glenn says, and means it. He doesn’t know why he stopped going anymore than why he came back that second weekend, only that he did. The weekend rolled around after Amy came to visit and he just didn’t go. He didn’t do anything at all, just sat in his apartment all night. 

Rick sighs and looks away. “Fine. What happened next?” 

“I think the people in the group panicked. Someone showed up at my apartment.” 

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Seems like there’s a lot you don’t know,” Rick says dryly. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Glenn responds without thinking and winces. Rick’s mouth twitches and smoothes out again. “He must have been new.” 

“Ok. So what did this new member want?”

Glenn curls his hand and uncurls it, feeling the pain and strain. His face hurts even worse. “I didn’t know that they knew where I lived.” 

Rick nods, his face still a mask. He looks so patient, like a teacher trying to give the class fuck up the benefit of the doubt, but Glenn can see in his eyes that he knows it won’t do any good. Glenn takes a deep breath and tries to steady himself. His injuries never felt so bad after Fight Club, and he’s been hurt worse than this before. Maybe it hurts more because he didn’t get them in a ring with people cheering him on, but in a real fight, a beat down meant only to hurt him. 

Glenn shakes his head to clear it. “He said that Philip had been planning something big, but I don’t know what it was. He was part of a group of members that wanted to break him out of jail. I don’t think- no one thought Philip was going to go away, I guess. They didn’t know what to do without him.” 

Rick’s eyebrows fly up but he doesn’t comment. Glenn frowns, it does sound ridiculous now, but at the time it had seemed real enough. “I told him I’d think about it, but I was just going to leave town. He gave me a phone, the one I think you guys have, and said he’d call me.” 

“Did he?”

“Yeah.” Glenn looks at the clock. “Also I think that they were going to try to kill Michonne.” 

“He said that?” 

“Someone in the background did.” 

Rick nods, eyes on the paper in front of him. “Who?”

Glenn bites his lip, considers lying. “Is she ok? I saw her fight, so I know she’s pretty-”

“She’s fine. Who was it?”

“I think it was Shane.” 

Rick just nods and doesn’t write anything down. “Did you ever participate in any of the extra activities?”

“The homework assignments?” 

“Sure.” 

“No,” Glenn says before he can stop himself. Rick gives him an even look. “Ok, yes, but not the illegal ones.” 

Never mind that he had been about to, and would have, had Amy not stopped him. 

Rick leans back in his chair, studying him again. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah.” 

More silence. Glenn avoids Rick’s gaze and tries not to move or make any noise, but he can’t, so he settles for very little movement and noise instead. Even his breathing is too loud for the room. Then someone knocks on the door, startling Glenn so badly that he tries to jump from his seat before forcing himself back down again. Rick ignore him and goes to the door. It opens, but Glenn doesn’t turn around to look, terrified that he might see someone he recognizes. 

Quiet talking drifts in his direction, but he doesn’t make any effort to understand it. He taps his fingers lightly on the metal of the table, and even that hurts. His knuckles are bruised, and a few are bloody. He curls his hand into a fist when Rick sits back down. 

“Am I being charged with something?” Glenn asks, and he tries to care, he really does. But he just feels tired. Rick looks at him for a long time before speaking. 

“No.” 

“Ok.” 

“What happened next?” 

Glenn sighs and looks away. Rick taps on the table, pointedly trying to catch his gaze again. “Don’t take it for granted. You’re off the hook for being cooperative, so be cooperative.” 

Glenn glances back over. “I guess that’s fair,” he says, because really it is. 

The hint of a smile appear and then immediately disappears from Rick’s face. “Right. So after this phone call-”

“Martinez and some other guys came after me,” Glenn says, trying to get it all done as fast as possible now that he knows he’s not being kept. If he’s released, they can get to him again, and he needs to get away. “I got jumped, we had a big fight. Now I’m here.” 

Rick nods. “What about Daryl Dixon?”

Glenn looks up, forgetting a half second too late that he shouldn’t react. “What about him?”

“He saved you, didn’t he? He’s the one got brought in with you.” 

“I guess.” Glenn shrugs and hopes it looks real enough. 

Rick’s eyebrows shoot up. “You guess?”

Glenn fixes his gaze on the clock stuck to the wall, wondering if Daryl was in another room doing the same thing. Because of him. 

“Yeah, that’s what happened.” 

Rick’s eyebrows pull in, making him look older, and more tired. He rubs a hand over his face. “Fine. Anything else?”

Glenn shrugs. “No.” 

They let him go. 

***

When he finally gets out of the station Daryl is long gone. It’s not exactly surprising, but Glenn still looks for him, scanning the parking lot for his truck, or even for him, arms crossed, looking like he always does. But he’s not there. 

Glenn bites his lip, which stings like crazy, and leaves. 

Of course, just leaving the station doesn’t allow him to stop thinking. They won’t give him his car, so he has a lot of unwanted time to himself. Glenn spends the first few blocks of his walk home looking over his shoulder every few feet, wondering if Martinez had been let out, if they managed to bust Philip out of prison. He wonders what Philip had been doing to get himself arrested. It had to have been bad, but it can’t have just been more of what Glenn had seen and almost been a part of. He hadn’t expected things to go so badly so quickly. He really hadn’t expected to get jumped on the way to the bus station. 

It had seemed so weird at first, like a video game happening in slow motion. But in games, when you get hit there’s a little green bar at the top of the screen that gets a little more red to show that you’re a little closer to not getting up. That’s it. That’s what it felt like in Fight Club too, if he’s honest. Nothing about it was real, and maybe that’s why it didn’t hurt as bad. There were plenty of times that Glenn got hurt and didn’t feel it until way later. It was like playing a game, only they weren’t playing. 

The sense of unreality had only increased when Daryl swung around the corner, red faced and already hitting someone. 

Glenn had tried to help, he really did, but there was only so much he could do against so many of them. It turns out, just as Glenn suspected from their most recent fight, that he and Daryl make a good team. But they’re not superheroes. One of them landed a good hit to Glenn’s solar plexus, and he realized that two against five is literally killer odds. He could have died. Daryl could have died. 

They would have died, had the police not shown up. 

“Glenn.” 

Heart pounding, Glenn turns, already knowing but not wanting to see. Shane looks back at him, leaning against the brick wall of the alley, arms crossed and head shaved. Glenn blinks. “Uh-” 

“You take the same route home even after getting out of an interrogation?” He shakes his head, looking genuinely disappointed. “That’s dumb, kid.” 

Glenn just nods, noticing for the first time that Shane has a gun. It’s not a big gun, which is something Glenn always thought would matter if he ever got threatened with one. The bigger the gun, the scarier. Turns out, they’re all scary. Glenn looks back down to Shane, who has straightened up. He reaches back and rubs the back of his head, sighing. 

It’s why Rick let him go, Glenn realizes. He knew that Shane would come after him. Rick didn’t have enough evidence to get him, but if he kills one of his old club members… He’d been released, but his car had still needed to be impounded. He hadn’t thought it through at the time, but why wouldn’t they have let him have his car if he was free? They needed Glenn to walk, and walk alone, to lure Shane out. He was bait. 

Glenn turns and runs, gets maybe five feet before a bullet hits the ground, ten feet in front of him and a foot to the left. He skids to a stop. It’s close enough to make him shake. He clenches his hand into a fist and tries to think. 

“Man just stop, I need to talk to you.” 

Taking a deep breath, Glenn turns back around. The gun is back by Shane’s side, lowered, but his finger is still on the trigger. He makes himself look up again. 

“Why don’t you put that down and make me talk then?” Glenn shoots back, hoping against hope that Shane will rise to the bait. 

Shane raises the gun, making Glenn jump back, but he keeps raising it all the way up to his face. He presses the palm of his hand, and probably the gun, into his forehead. “Man, listen to you. Do you hear yourself?” He lowers his arm. “This isn’t fight club.” 

“Sorry,” Glenn says, before he can help himself. He and Shane both wince. 

“Don’t do that just- what does Rick know?” 

“What?”

Shane raises the gun and shoot near Glenn’s feet again. The sound echoes off the alley walls. Glenn freezes and hope that this isn’t the kind of neighborhood where gunfire gets ignored. Though he’s willing to bet that Shane would know if it wasn’t, which isn’t encouraging. 

“Dixon isn’t here to save your ass this time kid,” Shane says, expression terrifyingly blank. 

“I know that.”

“Do you know where he is? He’s next on my list.” 

Glenn feels his eyes go wide. “You have a list?” 

More shots at his feet. This time Glenn doesn’t jump, but his heart is beating so fast it’s getting hard to breathe. Shane grins. “Yeah, I do.” 

For a horrible second, Glenn wants to ask if he’s on it, or just a means to an end. He’s not sure which would be worse. He nods, slowly. “Ok.” 

Shane throws his head back and laughs. “Kid, you’re something else. Do you get that?”

Glenn tries to shrug casually, but he’s not sure he gets it right. His heart is pounding, and he’s starting to get the tunnel vision he had read about. Standing is challenging, so he hopes Shane doesn’t ask him to talk again. He doesn’t, of course, too busy talking himself. 

“You should have joined up with us, you know,” Shane says, probably too casually for the situation. The gun drops to his side, but Glenn doesn’t fool himself. Shane’s eyes stay sharp, fixed on Glenn like a bird of prey, making him scared even to breathe. If he’s aware of this, he doesn’t show it. “You don’t belong in their world, that’s why you came back that second time.” 

It takes Glenn’s panicked brain a few seconds to catch up, like a computer having trouble downloading a file. Everything seems to be reaching him half a second too slow. The second time he went to fight club, the first time he did it on purpose. Glenn nods, not sure if he’s stalling for time or just going along with it. 

Shane suddenly points at Glenn with his right hand, gun and all. “See, that’s what I’m talking about.” He lowers it again, and Glenn takes in a shaky breath. “You’re not like the rest of them. You should have stuck around and helped, we were planning something big, a game changer.” 

Probably that game changer, whatever it was, is what got Phillip arrested. Glenn nods again, because it had worked last time. Shane nods back absently, seeming to just mirror Glenn’s movements. “We were going to change everything. No more slaves, no more nine to five, no more financial record.” 

Glenn’s eyebrows fly up. “What?” he asks, before his brain catches up with his mouth. It almost sounds like it came from somewhere else, but Shane refocuses on him with narrowed eyes. 

“You heard me. Phillip had a plan.” He takes a step closer. “Maybe if you had been there, it would have gone better.” 

Glenn takes a wobbling step back, trying to maintain the space between them. It’s pointless. Glenn can’t win, he knows that. Even if he somehow gets the gun away from Shane, he can’t win. Even with all the fighting he’s done, all the play acting and rolling around on the ground, he’s no match for Shane. If Shane tries to kill him, he’s going to die. 

Daryl doesn’t come for him a second time. Rick does. 

“Drop the gun, Shane,” Rick says, voice dangerously low but clear cutting through the alley. 

Glenn stares at him, surprised that he doesn't seem more shocked, and then realizes with a jolt of relief that this is why he’d been let go. Not so Shane could kill him, but so Rick could save him. It’s a small comfort, but it’s better than nothing. 

Shane doesn’t turn. “Hey, Rick. I just need a minute here.” 

“You need me to prove that I’ll shoot you? Because we can play it that way.” 

Shane rolls his eyes, the gun still trained on Glenn. “We did the same training, man. I know what you’re-” 

A shot rings out through the alley, and Shane drops. Glenn doesn’t stick around to see if and how he gets back up, making a wild dive for the dumpster and throwing himself behind it. Another shot goes off, but he has no idea from who. Glenn presses his back against the freezing cold metal as hard as he can, trying to ground himself in something. 

“Son of a bitch!” 

Shane. Still alive. The sound of a struggle, fading into the background of the rushing in Glenn’s ears. Glenn turns his head and then thinks better of it. Another shot goes off, this one hitting the front of the dumpster, metal on metal. Glenn sits, frozen, for half a second. Then he flattens out and starts working his way under the dumpster, adrenaline kicking in. 

A hand closes around his ankle and starts dragging him out, much stronger than he is. Glenn grits his teeth and fights. He hits his head on the bottom of the dumpster and keeps fighting, struggling against whichever one of them it is that has him. For the third time in way too short a time, Glenn realizes that he could really die. He process the shock and keeps fighting, resolves to fight for as long as he can, even though he’ll lose. His head clears the edge of the dumpster, exposing him completely, and he lunges for the knees, knocking the other person over. 

Rick hits the ground with a yell, and Glenn tackles him again, trying to pin him. He gets his knee up, and then Rick is on him, pinning him to the ground. Glenn yells, and struggles, and flails as best he can. Nothing happens. 

“Glenn? Glenn why the hell are you-” Rick grunts as one of Glenn’s elbows connects with his side. “Ok, enough.” 

His knee comes down on Glenn’s back, knocking the wind out of him. Glenn gasps, and things come back into focus. The alley, two terrified looking bystanders at the end of it, Shane handcuffed to a pipe. Rick above him, talking again. “Are you alright? You calm now?” 

“Yeah,” Glenn manages, still gasping. “Yeah, I’m ok.” 

From the other side of the alley, Shane sorts. “No, you’re not.” 

***

Glenn ends up with a court ordered therapist and a truly alarming amount of community service hours. It doesn’t even occur to him to complain. He gets another shitty food service job, and does his hours at the youth center. 

It’s not bad, but every time he sees one boy push another he feels sick. Guilty, maybe. He throws his Xbox out the window and it almost hits Amy on her way to his building. That gets the cops called again, but Amy talks them down, gets rid of them for him. Glenn just stands behind her, silent and freaked out, but she takes care of it. She’s nice. People listen to her. She’s also moving away to another state. 

“Find someone new?” Glenn asks, handing her apple juice in a coffee mug, which she promptly sets down on the table. 

She smiles at him and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Yes, actually. Not that you noticed six months ago.” 

Glenn blinks. “I’m sorry. For like, everything.” 

“It’s ok.” 

“Is it?”

Amy reaches over and sets a hand on his shoulder. “No. But it’s ok.” 

Glenn smiles, for what feels like the first time in a while. “Thanks.” 

After that Amy leaves, and Glenn never sees her again. The weird thing is, somehow he knows it at the time. She’s gone like the rest of them. Like Daryl. 

Then one day he realizes that he knows where Daryl lives, and what’s the worst he can do? Beat him up? Glenn laughs to himself as he gets in the car, heart pounding already. It takes him a few tries to get the key turned, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t let himself question it until he’s actually sitting outside of Daryl’s house, staring at it. The truck is there, so Daryl probably is too. Glenn sighs and gets out, goes up to the door. 

Daryl opens the it and freezes, eyes wide, mouth set in a hard line. Glenn shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. “Want to do me a favor and punch me in the face?” 

For a long moment, neither of them move. Glenn is nervous to even breathe, wondering if Daryl is actually going to take him up on it, but then Daryl rolls his eyes but steps back to let him in. “Dumbass.” 

For a minute Glenn is too surprised to move, but then his mind catches up with itself and he jumps at the opportunity, darting inside before Daryl can change his mind. “Daryl I’m so-” 

The breath rushes out of him when his back hits the wall. Daryl pins him, legs sliding between his thighs and hand gripping his shoulders hard, holding him still. Glenn gasps, trying to get his breath back, and Daryl kisses him, stealing it again. 

Glenn makes a wild grab for Daryl’s shirt, trying to force it up and over his head without creating any space between them. He wants to feel Daryl’s skin, to bring him down to the floor and hold him there like he does when they fight. He wants Daryl to tear him down. 

There’s a sudden pain on his right shoulder, and Glenn thinks that Daryl’s bitten him. Then they’re moving, going further into the little house, into Daryl’s room. Glenn losses track of the order of events, which is nice, nicer than anything he’s experienced in a long time. He doesn’t want to pay attention, he doesn’t want to know what’s going on. All he wants to know is that Daryl has him pinned to the bed instead of the wall now, Glenn’s legs wrapped around his waist, Daryl’s hand moving fluidly between them, bringing them together. He feels pressure, and pleasure, and runs his hands along Daryl’s back, tracing the patterns there. 

When it’s over, Glenn doesn’t feel like it’s over. He keeps his legs locked around Daryl until Daryl reaches back and unhooks him. “C’mon, let go,” Daryl says, very quietly. 

“I don’t want to,” Glenn responds, just as softly. It’s ridiculous, but he’s tired of lying and fighting and hiding and running. He just wants to lay down, with Daryl, for the rest of his life. Daryl can do whatever he wants with that information. Glenn too tired to keep from talking about things anymore. 

Daryl pauses, but then slumps down on the bed next to him, still touching. It’s enough. Glenn smiles and rolls in his direction, face to face. 

“Did anyone tell you what happened?” Glenn asks, and Daryl shakes his head slightly, still staring at him. Glenn tells him everything. It just all comes pouring out, the attack, the police station, the second attack. He feels strangely distant from it, like it happened to someone else. 

When he’s done, Daryl won’t look at him. “I shoulda’ kept on driving.”

Glenn frowns. “What?”

“After Jim got beat to shit. I shoulda’ kept on going, taken us out of there.”

“Oh.” Glenn shifts, becoming more aware of his physical surroundings, like the fact that he’s still wearing his shoes and his pants are open and sticky. He doesn’t move. “I don’t think I would have gone.” 

Daryl huffs out a slight laugh and pushes his hair out of his eyes. “I’d have made you. I should have. I knew you were fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Glenn agrees, probably too quickly, from the way Daryl looks over at him. He bites his lip and decides to keep going with the honesty. It had mostly worked out so far. “When I crawled under the dumpster, Rick pulled me out and I attacked him.” 

Daryl shrugs. “You didn’t know-”

“Yeah, I did. I knew it was him like pretty much right away, and I lunged at him anyway. I tried to beat him up.” 

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Glenn says, and scoots closer to Daryl by an inch. “Fight or flight?” 

“Habit.” Daryl says, and reaches over to pull him closer. Then he rolls over and on top of him, pinning him down. 

“I think I’m even more fucked up than you thought. I don’t know if I can go back.” 

“Nah. You can fix those.” 

“Huh,” Glenn says, looking up at Daryl’s cracked and dirty ceiling. “Ok. What now?” 

Daryl is still face down on his mattress and doesn’t look up. He has his legs tangled with Glenn’s and his hand wrapped around his upper arm. “Who the fuck cares.”

“We’ll figure it out?” 

“I guess we gotta.” 

Glenn smiles and reaches down, run his fingers through Daryl’s hair and doesn’t get swatted away. “Sounds good to me.”


End file.
